


Senior Shenanigans

by EmrysTheMerlin



Series: The Heart of A Hero [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Female Peter Parker, Flash Grows as a human, Gen, Glen Stacy - Freeform, Harry Osborn is trying, Male Gwen Stacy - Freeform, Parksborn, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark is Good With Kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-07-04 09:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 40,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15838062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmrysTheMerlin/pseuds/EmrysTheMerlin
Summary: Just as Piper Parker's life seems to be growing simpler a new batch of enemies rise from the woodwork. In the face of new problems Piper must set aside her qualms and seek help from a new source, one she never wanted to drag into this madness. Meanwhile something new has appeared on the streets of New York, now the question on everyone's mind is, is the Hobgoblin friend or foe?





	1. Long Overdue

**Author's Note:**

> I have returned, with the latest in the Heart of a Hero series. Hope you all enjoy, just to cover my bases I own nothing. Let me know what you think in the comments!!

Mary Jane Watson was quite nervous, even if she honestly couldn’t say why. She shifted from foot to foot in the elevator. Eddie laid a hand on her shoulder. 

“MJ, you’re gonna do great. I know you will.” She smiled at him as he readjusted his camera lens. She took a deep breath as they stepped out of the elevator into a familiar living room. Well mostly familiar. The clutter and mess that showed that people actually lived here had been cleaned up, leaving the room more pristine than MJ had ever seen it. That did nothing to calm her nerves as Pepper Potts stepped up to them. The older redhead smiled and gestured them out onto the patio. MJ took a deep breath and stepped out just ahead of Eddie. The source of her worries was sitting there with a shit eating grin on her face wearing a plain black dress and galaxy leggings ending in black sandals. A laugh bubbled out of her throat. 

“MJ you look like I’m gonna push you off the Balcony. Take a deep breath.” MJ snorted out a laugh as Piper offered her the seat across from her. MJ pulled a recorder from her bag and set it on the table. She sighed again. 

“Ok before we start I gotta ask. Why in gods name did you pick me to do your first ever publicized interview?” Piper let out a giggle. 

“Because you’re my friend, because you’re a great reporter and you should be doing more than running coffee for Jamison. And because I’m much more comfortable talking to you than any reporter.” MJ nodded. Piper had been putting off this inevitable interview since the world found out that she was the adopted daughter of one of the Avengers. But Tony could only front questions for so long. There were other reason that she was doing it this way though. Nothing she’d told MJ was a lie, there was just more to the situation than the redhead knew. Eddie had likely figured it out. But he knew the whole truth, that Piper was also Spidergirl, the only hero notoriously ragged on by the Daily Bugle. If she showed her support for the Bugle it took suspicion off her, at least as a suspect Spidey. He grinned and snapped a picture of her as she took a sip of her tea from her Hulk mug. MJ nodded and pulled out a notebook. 

“Well since we’ve answered my biggest question lets get to the real questions, if you’re ready?” Piper nodded to her friend and MJ reached out and turned on the recorder. 

“So, here we sit with the most sought after interview in New York, the adoptive daughter of Iron Man, heiress to Stark Industries, Piper Parker.” Piper grinned at her friend, MJ was a natural at this, Eddie was recording now, at the setup Piper had provided him. Piper grinned at MJ ignoring the camera.

“Miss Parker I have to say you’ve turned New York on its ear, since you came on the scene.” Piper laughed. 

“Well, Miss Watson I didn’t intend to that’s for sure.” MJ leaned forwards slightly. 

“Now one of the most burning questions the public seems to have is how did you end up adopted by Tony Stark.” Piper nodded sipping her tea. That had been one of the bigger questions running around the papers and magazines. The internet had created an endless stream of explanations to how that had happened but she was here to lay those rumors to rest.

“Honestly, almost none of the rumors are true. My parents worked for Tony back in the day, my dad Richard Parker was a scientist who helped build the inteli-crops, mom was in security. When they died I went to live with my aunt and uncle. After they passed I ended up in Malibu. Believe me I was almost as surprised as Tony when that happened.” MJ nodded, barely glancing at her notepad. 

“I gotta know, do you actually call him Tony?” MJ already knew she didn’t but the rest of the world didn’t. Piper let out a laugh.

“No, I call him dad. Over the past few years we’ve really built into a family, me him and Pepper.” 

“So he and Pepper are a serious item?” Piper nodded at MJ’s question. 

“Bout as serious as it can get if you ask me.” MJ grinned at Piper’s answer and kept asking questions steering the conversation through her relationship with the other Avengers, her involvement if any in their battles, and her home life. 

“So Mr. Stark claims you have no access to the armors, is that true?” 

“Yes, that is true. I do help him alter and fix the armors but I cant wear them unless something like what happened to the Malibu house happens again.” Piper said as MJ raised an eyebrow.

“Not even the suit you wore to the Osborn Charity Gala?” Piper shook her head. 

“We’re calling it the Oscar De La Renta, cause it’s a mostly red version, and that is behind glass at the moment. I doubt I’ll be wearing it again.” MJ nodded and glanced back at her notebook. 

“Speaking of that particular suit, after wearing it you earned the name Iron Lass, what do you think of that? Think you’ll be sticking with the superhero life after high school?” Piper laughed loudly. 

“Honestly no. Iron Lass is a terrible name. And the superhero thing is much more dad’s thing than mine. I just maintain equipment.” MJ nodded at her answer then she got a mischievous look on her face and Piper got the distinct feeling she was about to go off script. 

“Circling back to the Osborn Gala, you showed up on the arm of the son of one of your father’s biggest competitors, Harry Osborn. How did that happen?” Piper took a deep breath, this was MJ’s career on the line so she sighed and spoke.

“Harry and I have been friends for years. When my dad got… abducted in Afghanistan, when he became Iron Man, I was almost completely on my own for a while. It was hard because I had already lost so many people. He was there for me when I needed someone most. We’ve been friends ever since.” MJ nodded, like a lot of these questions she’d already known the answer. 

“A lot of rumors have been spreading that you and he are an item, what do you say to that?” Piper glanced down at her fingers. That was a tough question, one she hadn’t really thought about. She felt heat rise in her cheeks. 

“We aren’t a couple, we’ve been really close friends for year. He’s a spectacular person, but… we’ve never dated.” Eddie gestured for them to wrap it up, they were reaching the end of their time limit. MJ held out a hand to Piper. 

“Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today Miss Parker.” Piper grinned and took her friends hand. 

“It was lovely to speak with you Miss Watson.” Eddie stopped the camera and grinned. 

“Nicely done ladies!” Piper hugged MJ close. MJ returned the hug without a thought. 

“How did I do?” MJ asked brushing her hair back. Piper laughed. 

“You did great! I was not expecting the questions about Harry.” MJ’s face fell at those words.

“Did I overstep?” Piper shook her head, pulling Eddie into a hug as well. 

“Not at all MJ. You did great.” MJ breathed a sigh of relief. Eddie and MJ had to get back to the Daily Bugle. Piper bid them farewell and breathed a sigh as she changed into her costume and set out for patrol. Ava was busy with homework, wanting to make sure she got everything for the week done that night. Sam was having some one on one training with Steve and Danny and Bruce were sharing meditation techniques, so it was just her and Luke for the day. She swung in the direction of a large plume of smoke coming from a lab space near the river.


	2. Same Places, New Problems

It would surprise many people to learn that getting violently headbutted into a tree by an upright standing, speaking rhinoceros was not that odd an occurrence for Piper Parker. Of course she wasn’t exactly Piper Parker when it happened, she was Spidergirl. That didn’t mean it was less embarrassing though, but that could wait for later. For now she was sitting at her computer trying to figure out what to do. She really didn’t want to hack into Oscorp again, she always felt skeezy doing that. But Piper couldn’t go to Harry with this problem. Ava glanced over her shoulder. 

“Damn. Oscorp again?” Piper nodded. 

“Yeah. Story of my life right there. But I don’t know what they were doing in the lab. And I really don’t want to have to hack into it again.” Ava nodded. 

“Yeah I can understand that. You have a lot of problems with them though. What are you going to do?” Piper smacked her head into the desk in front of her. 

“I have no idea.” Ava was silent for a moment. When she spoke she sounded contemplative. 

“Ok, here’s something you might not have thought of. Go to Harry about it.” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“I’ve thought of that. But how would I know about this?” Ava shook her head. 

“No, not as Piper, as Spidey.” Piper blinked at her friends pronouncement, so Ava continued. “Spidergirl has every reason, or at least a bunch of excuses to know this stuff. Harry hasn’t openly stated anything against Spidey ever. And if you mess up you can jump out the window without suspicion.” Piper stared at Ava for a minute.

“Ava you are an absolute genius!” Ava grinned as Piper yanked off her shirt and yoga pants and pulled on her gloves and mask. Ava caught her hand as she headed for the window.

“Maybe just start with the robbery today, lead up to everything else.” Piper nodded, she hadn’t been planning on dumping all this on Harry at once. She slipped out the window in silence. 

 

Harry Osborn was sincerely wishing he was old enough to drink without feeling bad about it. It had been two weeks since school had started and his personal project wasn’t anywhere near done. Now there had been a robbery at an Oscorp lab. A very public fire, seemingly set off by the rampaging bipedal Rhino, had aided the theft and the board was now questioning how effective it was to keep Harry in any position of power. He stared at his glass of coke resentfully. Then he jumped as there was a tap on the window. That should have been impossible, he was in the penthouse. He glanced over at the window and stared at the red and blue clad hero hanging upside down outside the window looking in at him. He stayed still for a moment then scrambled over to the only window that opened, it didn’t open far enough for her to get into the penthouse though. Harry stared at her. 

“Spidergirl. What are you doing here?” The red and blue clad hero scratched the back of her neck. 

“We should talk inside. This isn’t something anyone else needs to know about.” Her voice was slightly distorted, but he nodded and thought for a second. None of the windows opened all the way anymore, not since the robbery. 

“The balcony. It’s the easiest way in.” Spidey nodded to him and crawled along the windows out of sight. Harry took a deep breath and rushed out to the living room to meet the hero. He opened the balcony door for the hero and closed it behind her pulling the curtains closed and turning on the lights. 

“Um… Please have a seat.” The hero looked at him for a minute before perching herself on the back of the couch. Harry blinked at her for a moment then shook his head. “I uh, I don’t think we’ve ever actually been properly introduced. I’m Harry Osborn, everyone calls me Harry.” Spidey nodded. 

“I know. I’m Spidergirl, you can call me Spidey.” They were silent for a moment until Harry cleared his throat. 

“Is this about my dad?” Harry felt bad about feeling relieved when Spidey shook her head. He missed his dad, but not because he was missing affection, Norman never really showed that anyway. He missed not being the one in charge of Oscorp. Then he frowned. “Then what is this about?” 

“The robbery at Oscorp today. I want to help track down the one who did it and all I have to go on is a vanishing bipedal Rhino.” Harry nodded. 

“Of course. Here follow me.” Harry led her into his father’s office. 

 

Piper hadn’t been in Norman Osborn’s office often but she could definitely tell that Harry had taken over things. The desk was strewn with papers and blue prints. Norman would never have allowed a mess like that. Harry showed her the files he had on the robbery. It was an experiment similar to what Stark Industries had been doing with Lizard DNA but on a much smaller scale, they were on the rat lab but now all of their current samples were missing, stolen by the Rhino. Oscorp was doing it to strengthen endangered species, it wasn’t meant for use on humans. She nodded as he printed out the information she needed. He placed it in a folder and handed it over. She nodded and thanked him and turned to leave but he stopped her. 

“Wait.” Piper raised an eyebrow under her mask. Harry took a deep breath and sighed. He flopped back into the chair at the desk. “I… I didn’t know who to tell.” He tapped the touchpad on his father’s computer, bringing the dark screen to life. He tapped on a file and brought up a video. Piper had to hold back a gasp as she watched Norman Osborn speak to a prone Dr. Otto Octavius. 

 

Harry wished he could see beyond the hero’s expressionless mask. She watched the video the whole way through without a word, the whites of her mask staring blankly at the screen in front of her. 

“I found it after SHEILD fell. I didn’t know who to go to. There’s more.” Harry pulled out a USB and handed it to the hero.

“It’s all on there, I made copies of it. I’ve got about four. Don’t know why I did it honestly, but it seemed like the smart thing to do.” Spidey nodded mechanically. 

“Why didn’t you go to the Avengers? You know Tony Starks kid, why not go to her?” Harry shook his head running his hands through his hair. 

“I couldn’t, I couldn’t hurt her like that. There’s evidence on that drive that implicates my father in the plane crash that killed her parents. She’d never be able to even look at me again. I… I know this needs to be brought to light, even if it ruins my father and Oscorp, but I can’t sacrifice what I have with her. She the most important person I have in my life.” Spidey stared at him for a moment the white eyes unnerving him slightly.

“I don’t think she’d hate you Mr. Osborn, your father maybe but not you.” Harry shook his head eyes dipping to the floor. 

“How would you know?” 

 

Piper had a choice to make in that split second after he asked that question. Should she risk everything and tell him the truth, all of it? Or should she keep him safe from everyone who would want to hurt him by keeping him at an arm’s length?

“I… I work with the Avengers from time to time. I’ve met her. She talks about you a lot. I think you might be just as important to her as she is to you.” Harry laughed dully and shook his head. 

“I can only hope you’re right.” Spidey stood there for a moment before she left silently. Harry felt a weight lift off his chest, not completely but still it did feel better to know that he had someone on his side in this. He wondered briefly if he should have told her about his plan. He shook is head as he glanced at the photo he’d placed on his desk. It was him and Piper from last year at school, before Venom, grinning at the camera Eddie he pointed at them. He smiled slightly and stood stepping over to one of the masks on his fathers wall. Soon he’d be able to keep her safe himself.


	3. Dreams To Come

“The chemicals the Rhino stole are very valuable. He’d net a small fortune for them on the black market, but I don’t think that’s what he’s using them for.” Sam raised an eyebrow at Piper as she swiped the hologram across the room to him.

“Why not?” Piper shook her head. 

“Best I can make of the formula it’s an experimental performance enhancer, a super steroid. Not what it was intended for but it’s what they ended up with.” Ava frowned at the formula.

“I mean you’re right but why wouldn’t he be trying to sell it. Why take so much of it if he wasn’t going to? Dude in a suit like that, you’d think he’d need the money to keep up with tech since he doesn’t seem to be buying from any market your tech can find.” 

“Because he’s not using tech. I got a basic scan from the fight. That was all organic. None of that was a suit.” Luke shook his head at the scan she’d pulled up. 

“It was some strong skin then.” Piper nodded at his pronouncement. 

“Yeah, very.” Danny frowned. 

“You think he’s taking the enhancer. That he took all of that for himself.” Piper nodded, Danny raised an eyebrow. 

“Then how will we tell who’s the Rhino, if it turns them into that we can assume it wears off.” Ava nodded, still running through the formula. 

“It wouldn’t last too long either, if we can keep him fighting for long enough he should turn back on his own. But it would also be highly addictive.” Piper nodded at Ava.

“Nice catch, took me a while to figure that out. But that would be why he took so much. To make sure he won’t run out any time soon.” 

 

Tony Stark was asleep, in and of itself an achievement, especially in the middle of the day. But he was dreaming which was something he’d been trying to avoid since New York. Ever since New York his dreams had been less than pleasant. In point of fact his dreams were far too close to a screaming reality than he was comfortable with. Much like the one he was having at that very moment. 

It started much like they usually did, with lights, colored lights. He’d figured out that the different colors meant he would be in for different kinds of dreams. Orange was always the best. Orange meant he would be reliving his best moments. Purple terrified him so much now that he’d gone through his wardrobe and what he could of everyone else’s and thrown out every piece of purple he could find. Purple meant watching a ship captained by a shadow shrouded giant creep closer and closer to home. Yellow wasn’t too bad, yellow meant dreams spent in a lab, watching as formulas ran and people worked around him, unable to move. Green wasn’t too bad. Green meant a night of hiding from Howard or playing piano with his mother. Blue was probably his second favorite. Blue meant he would dream of worlds away from his own, giant heads of unknown creatures now teaming with life, golden cities, a planet made of trash, anything seemed possible through the blue dreams. Red was the worst. Red scared him more than even the purple dreams. He was having a red dream now.

 

It started as the red ones always did, with dust swirling around him. The sky was yellow, like he’d never seen, rubble surrounding him. He didn’t recognize where he was but the dust felt like it was everything he loved in the world turned to ash in his mouth. But this time the world around him rippled red. That hadn’t happened before. Like a stone thrown into a pond it rippled for a moment then the scene around him shifted and changed. 

The world around him was now much more familiar. It was New York, near Stark Tower, a few blocks away at most. A battle raged around him, so chaotic he could barely make out the details. Flashes of explosions nearly blinded him as a cackling laugh echoed around him. A feminine cry of rage followed it, a flash of tattered red and blue racing past him on a line of white. The battle raged as he was unable to turn and watch. Then a flash of bright near white blue lit up the sky and he was free to turn as he blinked. In that last moment he saw something that couldn’t be right, that couldn’t be real. A voice he didn’t know echoed around him.

‘You can’t prevent this, arm her, prepare her for any world she may see.’ The woman’s voice echoed around the statue made of light he was staring at. Then it shattered, and he sat bolt upright with a muffled scream.

 

Pepper turned to look at the couch where Tony had passed out after several days of nonstop work. Tony was gasping for air. She set down her Stark Pad and quickstepped over to him, rubbing his back. 

“Tony?” He was shaking like a leaf in the wind. 

“I… I need to get back to work.” He stood, shaking off Pepper’s hand and practically running for his lab.


	4. Back At School

School was still something that Piper didn’t really look forward to much. It gave her time to catch up on some projects though since she blasted through her homework without much thought or effort. She was remotely fiddling with something in the lab on her Stark Pad when she heard a commotion around the corner. She pulled her nose out of her work in time to see Kobe push a skinny kid from her advanced mechanics class into a dumpster. 

“Hey!” She stepped over to them, slipping her Stark Pad into her bag, hands landing on her hips. Kobe turned, a grin on his face as his hands flew behind his back and he stepped to the side to hide the boy in the dumpster from view. He was a big guy, pale skin always slightly clammy but he made up half the defense of the football team. Most people called him The Wall because of it. Most of Piper’s friends called him The Wall because no amount of information seemed to be able to get through his head.

“Leave him alone Kobe.” The football player snarled at her.

“You think just because your daddy is a bigshot doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do Parker.” Piper glared at him. 

“I was never scared of you Kobe, I don’t need my dad to stand up to a bully like you.” Someone cleared their throat at the entrance of the alley. 

“Yeah, that’s why she’s got us.” Danny and Luke were standing at the end of the alley. Luke cracked his knuckles and Kobe flinched, he was a big guy but not a lot of it was muscle. He liked to joke that most of it was his girlfriend’s famous cupcakes. He rolled his eyes and threw down the papers in his hands. 

“Fine, but when your little bodyguards aren’t around watch out Parker!” Piper ignored him and stepped forwards pulling the boy out of the dumpster. 

“You ok Alex?” The boy stared at her for a moment straightening his glasses. 

“You know who I am?” Piper nodded. 

“Of course. You sit next to me in advanced mechanics, we’ve been going to school together for ages. Why wouldn’t I know you?” Alex blushed a bit as he fished his bag out of the trash.

“Popular girls don’t tend to associate with dorks like me.” Piper snorted a laugh.

“That is the first time someone’s called me popular. I think I preferred it when I blended into the background.” Alex frowned at that as Piper scooped up his homework and brushed it off handing it back to him. “Kobe’s just an ass, you want me to tell someone he’s bugging you?” 

“No. That never works. Nobody cares about little people like me.” He took back his papers. Piper frowned. 

“That’s not true. Alex if he’s doing this regularly you need to tell someone. Nothings gonna change if you don’t take a step.” Alex looked down at his feet. 

“Look I appreciate your pity, but I don’t need it. He’s not going to be bothering me much longer, none of them are.” Piper reached out and caught Alex’s arm. 

“Don’t do anything stupid. Violence just causes more violence. Reach out don’t hit back.” Alex shrugged her hand off. 

“Look it’s sweet you’re acting like you care but I don’t need your pity.” Alex stalked off and Piper frowned and jumped as a hand landed on her shoulder. She looked up and smile at Harry. 

“Playing the hero again Piper?” Piper stuck her tongue out at him and smiled as they made their way into the building. 

“Kobe was being a dick, kid needed a hand. He’s not a bad guy.” Harry nodded. 

“He’s a smart kid too. Got that Oscorp internship I wanted you to apply for.” Piper laughed. 

“You know my dad’s got me practically running the interns at Stark Industries.” Harry laughed as they headed down the hall. 

“And I hear you’ve got them running like a well oiled machine since what happened with Dr. Connors.” Piper frowned slamming open her locker. Dr. Connors was still a touchy spot, but Harry didn’t know why. Of course that was because he didn’t know that the doctor had known her parents and had injected himself with the lizard serum to save her from Octobots he’d accidentally released. Harry caught her hand. His expression had shifted with her mood, from carefree to concern. 

“How’s he doing?” Piper shrugged at Harry’s question.

“Dr. Cho says she’s gonna try waking him up in a few weeks. He seems to be back to normal but we wont know for sure until he’s awake.” Harry nodded as MJ came running up to them. 

“Guys! Have you heard what happened at Central Park East High?” Piper’s heart leapt into her throat. She hated to admit it but she’d been avoiding that whole side of town for a while now, entirely because she didn’t want to run into a certain someone who went to Central Park East. 

“What happened?” She somehow managed to keep her voice even as she asked, MJ was always good for gossip. 

“There was a gas leak over the summer. Apparently the janitor tried to smoke out back and lit up the school like a bonfire a few days before term started. They’re still figuring out where to put all the students until they can rebuild. Apparently we’re getting a whole bunch of them today.” Piper’s eyes widened as someone cleared their throat behind the small group. 

“And here I was kinda hoping it would be a surprise.” Piper whirled, eyes going wide as she took in the blonde behind her. 

“Hi Piper.” She was silent for a moment before she ran, took off down the hall at top speed, slipping into the nearest girls room. MJ blinked after her friend as Harry turned a frown on the boy. 

“That was not how I was hoping that would go. Hi, I’m Glen.” MJ’s eyebrow climbed as the bell rang. 

 

Piper slipped into her advanced mechanics class a few minutes after the late bell, receiving only an eyebrow raise from her teacher. Of course she spotted the blonde head of hair she was trying to avoid in her regular seat at the front of the class so she slipped in next to Ava instead. Ava raised an eyebrow at her friend and tapped her finger on the table. The rest of the team didn’t know it but both girls knew Morse Code and used it to communicate when they couldn’t talk out loud. 

P.R.O.B.L.E.M. was what Ava tapped out now, her eyebrow raised. Piper’s eyes darted to Glen at the front of the classroom, her gaze meeting his for a moment before she ducked down behind her text book. Ava’s stifled laugh told Piper she didn’t really have to answer her question. She laid her head down on her desk. So much for senior year being a cake walk.


	5. Tight Knit

Lunch couldn’t have come sooner. Piper spent the entirety of her advanced mechanics class staring at the clock willing the bell to ring as soon as possible. But before she could make her escape the teacher Mr. Harrington called her back into the class. 

“Miss Parker I hate to keep you but I need your assistance. As you know we’ve had an influx of new students. It would be of great help if you’d assist Mr. Stacy in catching up on what he’s missed over the past week.” Piper nodded, refusing to look up at Glen who was likewise occupied by his frayed shoelace. 

“Of course Mr. Harrington. Not a problem.” Piper turned and Glen followed her out of the classroom and to her locker. Glen kicked at the floor and sighed. 

“This is awkward. But it doesn’t have to be. Listen I get why you broke up with me.” He took her hand, making her finally look into his eyes. “You left because you care. Because you don’t want me getting hurt, well I hate to break it to you but living in New York means I’m in danger stepping outside my front door. Being the son of the police Captain, paints a target on my back. With or without you I’m a target. And I’d honestly rather be one with you.” Piper bit her lip and closed her locker, grabbing her lunch. 

“I… Let me think about it Glen.” The blonde smiled wide and gently squeezd her hand. 

“Take all the time you need, all I ask is that you do think about it. Don’t give up on me because you’re scared of what might happen.” He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and smiled when she leaned into his hand. Someone wolf whistled behind them. 

“Puny Parker ditched her last boy already? How many boys you got willing to date you because of Daddy’s money huh?” It wasn’t Flash like she’d been expecting, it was Kobe. Before either of them could say anything in Piper’s defense someone else stepped between Kobe and the two of them. Piper’s eyebrows climbed as Flash crossed his arms glaring at Kobe. 

“Come on K, grow up. This whole bigger than you thing is getting old.” Kobe pulled a face. 

“Whatever Flash. Not worth the time to pick on her anyway.” Flash frowned after his friend, fiddling with the sleeve of his black shirt. Piper frowned at him as he turned to her.

“Sorry about Kobe, I’m trying to get them to lay off people but it’s harder than it looks.” Piper patted him on the arm.

“Yeah I bet it is.” She froze her hand on his arm as a shock passed up her arm and the fabric of his shirt seemed to move. 

“I gotta go.” He rushed off towards the caffiteria. Piper blinked after him for a moment until Glen caught her hand again. 

“Piper? You ok?” Piper nodded shaking off the feeling she’d gotten from him. Something wasn’t right. She needed to get to the bottom of it.

“I’m fine Glen. We should start on getting you caught up on class. Even for you it might take a while. You’re more chemically minded than mechanically.” Glen nodded and followed her to the cafeteria. Lunch was about halfway over when Ava sat down next to Piper. 

“So you must be Glen.” Glen glanced at Piper.

“You told your friends about me?” Piper nodded and Ava grinned, letting her Tiger side bleed through enough for her eyes to flash green and her nails to lengthen for a moment. 

“She tells me everything.” Glen nodded. 

“Ah, makes sense. Nice to meet you…” Ava let her eyes go back to normal.

“Call me Ava. You’re in our advanced mechanics class.” Glen nodded. 

“Yep, having a few problems with the coding, not really my area.” Piper grinned checking his code over his shoulder. 

“Yep but can’t beat him at genetics.” Harry’s laugh drew her attention away from Glen’s computer. 

“This must be Glen Stacy then, Stark Industries snatched him out from under Oscorp.” Piper laughed and grinned. 

“Harry, yes this is Glen. Glen this is Harry.” Glen shook Harry’s hand noticing how his eyes went icy as he smiled at him. “He’s one of the brightest in the internship. Though Harley well outstrips you in the mechanics department. Got a few flubs in the coding, but not bad.” Glen nodded and turned back to his work as Harry tossed Piper his apple from his lunch. She caught it with a smile and bit into it. Glen raised an eyebrow at Ava. 

“Harry’s allergic to apples, she likes them.” The look in Ava’s eyes told Glen there was a bit more to it than that but Ava shook her head when he opened his mouth to say something. Harry laid his hand on Piper’s shoulder for a minute. 

“Can I talk to you in the hallway for a minute?” Piper nodded and followed Harry out into the hall. Harry paused for a moment then took a deep breath. 

“I know you know Spidergirl, I need you to give her something.” Harry pulled a flashdrive out of his pocket. “She… She came to talk to me about what happened at Oscorp yesterday. The chemical robbery. I got a tip someone might hit a train shipment that’s coming in tonight. All the details are on the drive. If you could give it to her, I’d really appreciate it.” Piper took the drive. 

“I’ll make sure she gets it Harry. I think it’s great that you’re helping her out. It’s really brave Har.” Harry grinned at her. 

“I’m glad you think so.” 

 

Classes for the rest of the day sped by and Piper made it back to her lab in record time. She grinned to herself as she plugged in the usb and went over the train schedules. Nova was heading out to Nevada for the weekend, it was his little sister’s birthday. Piper insisted on sending her a present. Nova didn’t know it but it was the new Nova Bear Build-a-Bear workshop would be releasing next month. Ava was tutoring Liz, a nightmare Piper was glad she wasn’t doing. Danny had a Skype meeting with the board of Rand Industries so Piper dialed Luke. 

“Hey, meet me in my lab I have a surprise for you! Yeah ASAP!” It only took him ten minutes. He was still in his workout clothes. 

“How’s sparing with Cap?” Luke grinned. 

“Amazing as always. I pinned him again!” Piper grinned and high fived him. 

“Nice. Listen. I need your help tonight. We’re staking out an Oscop train shipment. Hoping the Rhino shows up and we can stall him long enough for the chemicals to wear off. You in?” Luke nodded. 

“Of course.” Piper grinned.

“Excellent, knew I could count on you. Now here’s what I have for you.” She stepped away from a large something in the middle of the lab. It was covered in a sheet. She gestured him forwards. He stepped up and pulled off the sheet. He let a grin spread across his face. 

“Meet the power bike! It’s personalized of course. It doesn’t stick to walls but all of it is reinforced, it can take almost the same amount of beating you can. Almost being the key word. Com units connect to the watches and the Spider cycle. I’m working on one for Danny too. Don’t worry it is self-powering, no gas, zero carbon footprint. Got an Arc Reactor in it but don’t tell anyone, proprietary tech and all that. Alerts you if you ever get a tracker or anything stuck to it.” Luke sat on the bike and grinned. 

“Girl, this is fantastic. You’re making one for the others too?” Piper nodded. 

“Personalizing them takes time though. Got most of them ready, Sam’s is giving me some difficulty though. I’m thinking that he might not get one just cause it wont be able to go as fast as he can from the get go.” Luke nodded. 

“Makes sense. Let me grab a quick shower and we’ll head out to head off this train.” Piper grinned and nodded. Luke hopped off the bike. He frowned slightly.

“How come you don’t make any of your own tech?” Piper frowned at that.

“Dad won’t let me. He keeps coming up with all these things for me that I can’t ever see myself using. I… I worry about you guys, you’re family now. I haven’t been able to protect family in the past, I know I cant protect you guys at all times but I have to do what I can. I think dad’s doing something similar.” She paused for a moment fiddling with something on her desk. “I’d appreciate this not going further but he’s been different since New York. He… he seems convinced that there’s something coming. He doesn’t know when or what or why but he’s always talking about the next threat. I think he wants me to be ready more than anyone else. He’s worried that next time there’s a big battle I won’t be walking away.” She shook her head.

“I mean I know he has faith in me, he knows I can take care of myself but…” Luke nodded at her. 

“He’s worried. Any dad would be. It’s sweet. You guys are a tight family, I’m glad I get to be part of it.” Piper grinned as he pulled her into a short hug. They parted to shower and change and met back up in the garage. Piper typed in her access code and they mounted their bikes. 

“Race you to the train yard!” Luke grinned and gunned his engine.


	6. A New Player

Spidey laughed as she pulled into an alley near the train station. Power-man had beaten her here, honestly she was happy. She wanted him to push his new bike to the limits, to test it out so she could improve on any flaws. He clapped her on the back with a laugh. 

“I gotta say Spidey she handles like a dream! You are one excellent mechanic.” Piper grinned under her mask and bowed slightly. 

“Thank you, thank you. Guess I am getting pretty popular huh?” Luke raised an eyebrow, just visible above his shades. 

“You?” He burst out laughing and Piper elbowed him in the side as they crossed the road and leapt up on top of one of the bridges above the tracks. She was grinning under her mask though. 

“Trust you to deflate my ego PM.” He grinned at her. 

“Anytime you need it Spidey.” She laughed as they waited. They had a good twenty minutes before the train arrived. Luke sighed, sitting on the edge of the bridge. “So what was up this morning, that big guy Kobe seems like a tool.” Piper nodded at him. 

“Oh completely. Personally I think he’s taken one too many hits to the head at football practice but...” She shrugged, trailing off. 

“Yeah what’s up with that? I thought you had the bullying thing sorted out.” Piper shrugged. 

“I mean I’ll probably be bullied by someone till graduation, it’s practically tradition at this point. Flash seems to have sworn off but nobody else. He’s trying to keep his buddies in check but I doubt he’ll have much luck. That crew thrives on the pain of others.” Luke frowned. 

“It’s good that he’s trying to change though. Be the change you want to see in the world and all that.” Piper raised an eyebrow at her friends words. 

“When did you start dishing out the mantras? Thought that was Iron Fist’s thing.” Luke grinned. 

“That is one of his actually. I just thought it worked well.” Piper nodded, perching herself next to her friend, balancing on the balls of her feet. 

“It does. I don’t know though. There’s something off about him lately. I got this really weird vibe off him when I touched his arm today.” Luke looked at her, she couldn’t really read his expression beyond the shades though. 

“Your spidey sense go off?” Piper shook her head. 

“No. It usually does around him, cause he’s usually dishing out threats left and right, but it was almost like he wasn’t setting off any of my senses. I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve felt before.” Luke nodded. 

“I’d talk to Iron Fist about that, he’s really good with that kind of thing.” Piper nodded. 

“Yeah. I think I will.” The ground under them began to rumble and Luke glanced down. 

“Looks like our train is here!” Piper nodded and they both leapt off the bridge onto the train as it glided under them. The train was humming. Piper frowned as she placed a hand onto the metal under her. 

“This shouldn’t be shaking like that. It’s electric.” Luke caught her attention. 

“It’s not the train!” She glanced up just in time to see the Rhino barreling into view, heading straight for the engine car of the train. Piper swore. There was no way they were going to be able to stop him from derailing the train, not at the rate he was going. Then out of the night sky came an orange blast, almost like a repulsor. It struck the Rhino in the foot but he just kept coming, slamming right into the train. Piper grabbed Luke and threw them both off the train shooting a web out to the nearest building, a nearby warehouse, and swinging them both off the train as it flipped and the sound of metal tearing ripped through the regular sounds of New York at night. She glanced up searching for the source of the blast that had tried to slow the Rhino down. She nearly dropped Luke when she spotted him. 

 

The figure was on a glider that for a moment she thought was the Green Goblins but no, this one was slimmer, more streamlined and the figure on the glider was much smaller than the Goblin. He was maybe six foot, if that. It was hard to tell on the glider. He was wearing almost entirely black, making him rather difficult to pick out against the night sky, but the bright orange glowing accents acted like beacons. They adorned the gloves of the suit he was wearing. It looked like he’d taken inspiration from the Iron Man armor at some point but gotten bored halfway through making the armor and opted for something with more of a Sith lord feel to it. How his hood wasn’t flying off was a mystery, but the glowing orange eyes of the black metal mask distracted from that for the moment. He swooped around aiming his glove at the Rhino. He squeezed his hand closed and another bright flash of orange light fired at the hulking figure who brushed it off like it was a mosquito bite. 

 

Luke leapt out of her arms, landing in front of the skidding train car and digging in his heels as another train came barreling down the tracks a few feet away from them. Piper fired web after web at the train car slowing it so Luke could catch it without getting smeared into jelly by the oncoming train. Once she was sure he had it she ignored the new face and leapt into the train car pulling out injured and shaken up technicians. The wail of ambulance and police sirens was becoming clearer as Spidey deposited the last of the technicians out of harms way and turned back to the fight. Luke had thrown the now empty train car at the Rhino. That seemed to have slowed him down but just for a moment. The man on the glider had circled around and was firing at the Rhino again, this time orange lightning arching from a gun that had emerged from the underside of the glider. 

“Stay down!” The voice was magnified and distorted. The Rhino roared and snatched up a broken piece of the train car he had shredded and threw it at the man forcing him to drop flat to the glider which tilted off balance and went spiraling. Piper glanced at Luke who was squaring up against the Rhino. He had indestructible skin he’d be fine. She leapt to one of the other train cars and fired two web lines at the glider, catching it as it would have careened into a warehouse. The man pulled himself to his knees, shaking slightly. 

“This is a bit harder than I thought it would be.” Piper rolled her eyes under her mask. All she needed right now was some Iron Man wanna be running around New York. 

“Stay here preschool, this isn’t a fight for a first timer.” She whirled as Luke screamed, the Rhino laughing. Flipping over the train car, not bothering to check that the newbie was staying put she snatched Power Man away from the Rhino with a well placed web and frowned as blood flew through the air. 

“Power Man!” Luke grunted as she caught him. 

“He gashed my leg!” Piper stared at him for a moment, not quite understanding what he was saying. 

“You have unbreakable skin!” Luke grunted again hands trying to stem the flow of blood from his thigh. Piper pushed his hands away and hissed in sympathy. It was a deep gash, luckily not near any arteries but it was still bleeding pretty bad. She webbed it closed. 

“That’s not gonna hold long.” She tapped her watch. “Anybody available?” She let out a sigh as Danny answered his coms. 

“Spider, I am headed to your location in a quin jet.” Piper breathed a sigh and her spidey sense nearly blinded her. She snatched Luke off the ground and flipped to the bridge as the Rhino smashed the ground where she’d just been. 

“Great. Power Man need medical now! I’m gonna go try and stop the large Rhino that just tore his leg open. Wish me luck.” Luke caught her wrist as she set him down. 

“He tore me open! You don’t have unbreakable skin!” She nodded, easily shaking off his hands.

“That’s true, but I have a tongue that managed to outsmart Loki on the fly, I’ll think of something. Wait here for Iron Fist. You won’t be able to stand on that leg for a while yet.” With that she backflipped off of the bridge, landing in front of the Rhino who seemed to have found what he was looking for in the wreckage of the train. 

“Hey big guy! You looking for something? Thought you would have gotten everything you’d need yesterday. You took quite a bit of chemicals from Oscorp, almost hurt a lot of their scientists too. I’m kinda hoping you didn’t mean to do that.” Rhino snorted. 

“Scientists were stupid men, think they’re better than Rhino! Think that Rhino is beneath them!” Spidey raised her hands, trying her best to look like she wasn’t a threat, which was probably easy since he was at least four times her size, give or take. 

“So, you decided to take their toys?” The Rhino turned to her and she spotted two small chemical containers in his large hands. 

“Rhino took wrong medicines! Ones haven’t been used right yet, got the right ones this time! Rhino won’t let anyone bully him!” Spidey took a step forwards. 

“No one’s trying to bully anyone here Rhino. But derailing a train and stealing dangerous chemicals aren’t helping your case here. Put them down and lets talk this out Spider to Rhino.” The Rhino looked at her, beady yellow eyes blinking slowly and for a moment she thought she was going to be able to resolve this without having to fight the man who had managed to rip open the leg of her supposedly impervious teammate. Then a blast of orange light hit the Rhino in the chest and he roared, more in annoyance than pain.

“You lied to me!” He snarled and kicked at the dirt before charging at her, head lowered to impale her on his horn.


	7. Overnight Patrol

Spidey leapt directly up as the Rhino charged at her. She was internally swearing at the brand new wanna be hero for being such an idiot. He didn’t even see when a situation was de-escalating, so he had to go and push it into the worst possible direction. She landed lightly on the ground as the Rhino charged into the remains of the train. He roared as she emptied both webshooters at him, sticking him to the remains of the train. The new vigilante’s glider was airborne again. Piper switched cartridges with a flick of her wrist and fired a web at the gun on the underside of the glider, blocking the barrel. 

“Hey!” She cut him off before he could say anything else. 

“You complete dumbass! I had that!” She heard a rip as the Rhino shredded her webbing and turned to rush her again. The quinjet had arrived and Iron Fist was bundling Power Man into it, so that was taken care of. She focused on her quarry as she leapt up again, to avoid him as he charged. If talking wouldn’t work, as she doubted it would now that the flying dumbass had shot him when she was trying to talk him down, she would have to wear him out and get him to turn back. She would have to keep playing chicken with a giant Rhino. She leapt again but this time he didn’t turn and charge her again, instead he barreled to where he’d dropped the two large vials he’d grabbed and ran away out of the train yard. Spidey flipped up to the glider, carefully balancing on it, in front of the man. Up close she could almost see his eyes beyond the mask. 

“The hell are you doing! You could have gotten multiple people killed. What do they call you anyway?” The man paused as if thinking it over but Piper didn’t give him the chance to answer. “You know what, it doesn’t matter right now, I have a Rhino to catch. You need to be careful if you decide you want to be out here saving people. Maybe start smaller.” Spidey flipped off the glider and swung after the large figure as he rounded the corner. She heard the glider flying after her. 

 

She couldn’t believe that she’d lost a two ton Rhino in the middle of New York. She swore and swung to a halt on the roof of an apartment building. She tapped her watch. 

“Anything White Tiger?” The other hero shook her head at the screen. 

“Not so far Spidey, you still got a newbie on your tail?” Spidey glanced at where the would be vigilante was landing on the roof. 

“Hey don’t discriminate, there was a time when you and the rest of the team were the newbies on my tail. Keep an ear out for me please.” She cut off the call and turned to the man now sitting next to his glider. She took pity on him after he looked up at her, even with the expressionless mask she could tell he was tired and upset. She sat down across from him. 

“Alright newbie, what’s your story? Safe roof, no digging for identities. Be a vague as you want. But why are you out here? Doing this? I have yet to meet one hero my age, or any age for that matter, who isn’t out here for a reason, usually a tragic one. So come on, tell Spidey.” The boy huffed and sighed before nodding. 

“So there’s a girl.” Spidey bit her tongue, there was always a girl. She let him continue. “She’s the most brilliant thing on this planet. Smart as a whip, beautiful, witty, kind, insightful. I could go on for hours. But she’s… she’s always in a bit of trouble. And well some of it, from what I can tell a large portion of it, is because of my family. I can’t go into detail but I want to make it right.” Spidey nodded and stood. 

“That’s not a bad reason to be out here.” The man made a noise of confusion. She nodded and helped him to his feet. “If you’d said that you were out here for glory or revenge I would have sent you packing. You have to be out here for a good reason, you have to know the value of life to be able to defend it the right way.” She gently pulled him to the edge of the roof and gestured down to the still bustling street. New York really never slept. “All those people down there, they’re her now. They are the person you’re fighting for. Defend them like they are and you’ll be on the right track. Now you’ll need a name. Any ideas?” The boy was silent for a moment watching the movement below them. 

“Hobgoblin.” Spidey nodded.

“I don’t love it but hey it’s not my name.” 

 

Harry grinned under his mask. Spidergirl approved of him and they were searching for the Rhino together. He barely noticed when the sky began to lighten. He did notice when Spidey let out a jaw cracking yawn. She swore under her breath and he laughed. She glance at him.

“What?” He shrugged. 

“Just didn’t know the Spectacular Spidergirl swore.” She let out a belt of laughter. Then she stretched. 

“Well we definitely lost him. Can only assume he’ll show back up later. We’ll get him. Follow any loud booms and you should find the fight. That’s how I started off anyway. You’ll get there HG.” He raised an eyebrow under his mask.

“HG?” Spidey sounded like she was grinning when she spoke. 

“Like I said, not a huge fan of Hobgoblin. Bit of a mouthful, and some bad association but it’s your name. So I found a way for it to be less of a mouthful.” He nodded. 

“I like it.” Spidey stretched again. 

“Well I need to head out. I’ll keep an ear to the ground, he wont get away for good.” Harry nodded under his hood and paused. 

“I… I wanted to say thank you. You’re a good teacher Spidergirl.” Spidey nodded.

“I’ve had some practice with my team over this last year. And I’ll say it again. The best thing anyone can teach you about being a hero is to never forget why you’re doing it.” With that she swung off into the distance. Harry thought about her words all the way back to his base. He’d gone through many back doors to buy a warehouse out of the way somewhere no one would look for him. He slipped in and out with ease, no one spotting him coming or going. He changed quickly and headed straight for school.


	8. Revelations On Revenge

Piper thought about going home and sleeping through the school day. Her dad would have let her, likely knowing she’d been out all night tracking the Rhino and dishing out advice to a brand new vigilante. But she had a history test that she knew her teacher wouldn’t let her make up that day so she begrudgingly headed for Stark Tower, grabbed her backpack, a pair of jeans and a shirt and headed to school. She changed in a back alley where no one would see her and stumbled across the street to the school, yawning loudly. She made it to her locker and stuffed in the books she wouldn’t be needing grabbing the ones she did. Danny stepped up to her, looking concerned. 

“I take it last night didn’t go well?” Piper was about to answer him when another yawn cracked her jaw. Danny waited patiently. 

“Sorry, no I didn’t find what I was looking for, but we may have some extra help wandering around New York.” Danny raised an eyebrow so she continued, speaking quietly. “Calls himself Hobgoblin. Seems to be doing it for the right reasons but he’s a bit under experienced.” Danny nodded. 

“He needs guidance. I can think of no one better than you to give it.” Piper shook her head. 

“I can, like seven people, all of whom are more well equipped to teach people that kind of stuff.” Danny shook his head. 

“I disagree. They are good teachers but I do not believe they are the right people to help someone just starting out. For one they tend to delve too deep into the privacy of their students. You didn’t even ask did you?” Piper knew what he meant. He was talking about the identity of their newest vigilante, and no she hadn’t asked, had specifically stated that she wasn’t asking. She seemed to have been right to do so because he hadn’t tried to find hers out either during their admittedly short conversation. She shook her head at him and he smiled tossing her a sandwich from his lunch bag. He clearly knew that she hadn’t made it home last night. She bit into the sandwich and spoke around her mouthful. 

“How’s Luke?” Danny frowned a bit. 

“Stayed home today, though he didn’t want to. He’s in medical with sixteen stitches in his leg. He’s got better healing than most so he’ll be alright soon but still.” Piper nodded as Ava caught up with them. She was looking worried. Piper frowned at her. 

“What’s wrong?” She shook her head. 

“Easier for you to see than for me to explain, come on.” She lead Danny and Piper outside where a crowd was gathering around a smoking ruin. No one seemed to notice the bell ring as Piper slipped through the crowd and blinked at the ruin of the car in front of the school. Kobe was standing next to it looking emotionally as crushed as the car. On the door to the car was spray painted the words ‘You’re Next’. Flash stepped forwards and set a hand on Kobe’s shoulder. 

“You alright man?” Kobe shrugged his hand off. 

“Of course I’m fine. I’ll just get a new car! But if I find out who did this they aren’t going to be fine!” Kobe shoved through the crowd and purposefully shoved Alex to the ground as he passed. Piper stepped over to him and helped him to his feet. He frowned. 

“You ok Alex?” Alex nodded at her and smiled slightly. 

“After seeing that I’m great. Pretty sure he was trying not to cry.” Piper frowned. 

“You didn’t have anything to do with that did you?” Alex looked at her.

“I didn’t, but maybe a friend of mine did. I’m not gonna be shoved around anymore.” Piper frowned after him as he stepped away and felt something sticky on her hand. She glanced down and spotted a spot of yellow spray paint on the hand she’d used to pull Alex to his feet. She followed him through the crowd as several of the teachers came out to disperse the crowd to class. She caught a glimpse of something just barely sticking out of Alex’s bag and swore as she slipped out of sight in an alley. Maybe the Rhino wouldn’t listen to her but maybe Alex would listen to Spidergirl. It looked like she would be missing her history test after all. 

 

 

Harry frowned. He’s seen Piper at school that morning, talking to Danny, but she hadn’t shown up for class. There was a boom from outside and Harry looked up, remembering what Spidergirl had told him. He was going to peek out of the window when a red and blue clad figure was tossed through it. Glass rained and people screamed as Harry caught sight of Spidergirl pulling herself from the rubble of the window. She brushed herself off and leapt back out of the window. Harry scrambled to his locker. He had a call button for his glider, where he’d stored his suit in his bag. He managed to grab it and slip off in the confusion. There was no way he was missing out on this fight. 

 

 

Flash was alone in the bathroom, well sort of alone. He hadn’t been truly alone for a little over a month. He glanced around then glanced at the mirror. 

“Did you figure anything about who crushed Kobe’s car?” His black t shirt wiggled and writhed for a moment before a face made itself known, sitting right over his heart, white eyes so like Spidergirl’s. The teeth had taken some getting used to, razor sharp like needles, but despite the creatures appearance Venom had been a godsend. His father no longer hit him at nights. He and the symbiote had had a long talk when they first bonded about the abuse Flash had been experiencing. He didn’t want to call it that, he’d always been afraid of calling it that but the symbiote had never sugar coated anything with him. It had told him the truth about what he had to do. That he had to take himself out of the situation if he wanted to truly escape it. So, he had. He had gathered what he could carry and walked out the door. He was staying with Kobe for now. Kobe’s parents had always liked him and supported him getting out of the abusive environment he’d been living in for years. The symbiote hissed lightly. 

“Ssmellsss like the sssmall boy.” Flash frowned. 

“You’re gonna have to be more specific.” The symbiote wiggled slightly in frustration. 

“Glassssesss, dark hair. Sssmellsss like chemicalss, pen ink and anger.” Flash thought for a moment.

“Alex?” The symbiote hissed in agreement. “How the hell did Alex manage that?” The symbiote seemed to shrug. 

“Chemicalss do sstrange thisss.” Flash considered the being now attached to his chest and nodded. 

“You have a point.” The symbiote hissed a laugh then there was a boom and the wall shook. Flash blinked and pulled his letterman jacket over the symbiote and rushed out of the bathroom into the halls where people were panicking.


	9. Unwanted Reunions

 

 

Spidey rolled out of the way of a foot as it came down hard where she’d been. She shot to her feet as a familiar glider sped into view, sans rider. It disappeared out of sight and she sighed. Looked like no help was coming from the newbie right now. She leapt out of the way and realized her mistake a second later when the Rhino turned and ran towards Kobe who had run to the remains of his car by mistake. She was mid-swing, knowing she would never reach him in time. Then a black string came from near the entrance of the school and yanked Kobe out of the way of the Rhino. Piper froze, nearly slamming into a streetlight. Black webbing? That could mean only one thing, Venom. She glanced around and spotted the figure she was looking for. He was smaller than the last time, and he was missing the large white spider across his chest. He had grabbed Kobe out of the way and was now standing between him and the Rhino. Piper blinked, that didn’t fit with Venom’s usual MO. But it was clear that the Rhino, Alex, was after Kobe.

She made a split second decision. Swinging from the streetlight she snatched Kobe out of harms way and up onto the roof of the school. Then she whistled at the figures on the ground both of whom looked up at her, Venom seemed to smile, though he didn’t seem to currently have a mouth, just the familiar blank white eyes gazing at her with something new in their depths, something she hadn’t spotted before. She honestly wasn’t sure what it was, but she didn’t really have time for that. 

“Oi Rhino! You want to get to him, you’ll have to catch me!” A voice sounded behind her. 

“Need a lift?” It was the Hobgoblin. She grinned and pulled Kobe up onto the glider. He was more excited than scared at the moment. 

 

“Oh wow! Spidergirl actually touched me!” Spidey rolled her eyes and hopped onto the other side of the glider.

“Now would be a great time to kick this thing into gear, head for the docks, not too fast though we don’t want to lose him!” Hobgoblin nodded at Spidey and took off as her team emerged from an alley following her. Nova flew up beside her. 

“Uhh, Spidey gotta ask. Who’s the newbie? Also did we just kidnap a kid from school?” Kobe frowned at him.

“I’m not a kid I’m seventeen!” Nova ignored him.

“Well this is my new friend The Hobgoblin. And that kid is what the Rhino’s after.” Kobe didn’t react to being called a kid this time. Spidey swung to the bottom of the glider, careful to keep it balanced and shot a ball of webbing at the Rhino who was still following them. 

“Come on big guy? Can’t keep up? Too big and stupid?” Spidey was grateful that Nova blasted the vespa he threw at her. 

“Rhino not dumb! Rhino is strong!” She blew a raspberry at him. Nova shook her head at her.

“What are you doing webs?” 

“Antagonizing him. If he’s focused on us he’s not making too big a mess.” Nova nodded slightly, it wasn’t a great plan, antagonizing a supervillain who was strong enough to cut through Luke’s skin. But if it would keep others from getting hurt it would have to do. Spidey swung back up to the top of the glider as Nova followed her lead. Glancing over her shoulder she thought she saw a figure moving through the shadows. She couldn’t be distracted by that now, she would worry about that later. She needed to find Harry, after this was done. She had to make sure he was alright. He was the only Venom host who’d managed any kind of control of the creature, short lived though that had been. He’d even done some good as Spiderman. But she needed to focus so for the moment she shoved the thought to the back of her mind. Instead she turned to Hobgoblin. 

“Left here!” The glider turned the corner and Spidey grabbed Kobe who had been rather quiet through all of this. She flipped off the glider and swung into a little used warehouse. She swung inside and set Kobe on the higher level. 

“Stay here! Tiger! Fist, you’re on guard duty. Nova, HB you’re with me!” Kobe shook his head. 

“Why is this thing coming after me?” A voice from behind him spoke. It was gravely and he almost recognized it but he couldn’t tell right now. 

“Couldn’t be because you won’t stop bullying people?” Kobe whirled looking for the source of the voice but a figure flipped over him and landed on the ground next to Spidergirl who flinched. The figure was tall and muscular and pitch black from head to toe only the blank white eyes as a spot of color. Spidergirl wasn’t the only one who flinched. Ever other hero in the room had reacted to the new figure. Nova swore loudly. Hobgoblin had pulled back away from the figure almost violently. White Tiger was growling, but Iron Fist looked to be thinking. The whole group turned as the doors were torn apart and the Rhino stepped inside. He was snorting and puffing, he looked angry but he was also sweating. He snorted again and lowered his head to charge. Spidey thought fast.

“Nova, HB stall him!” She spun on her heel and shot a web at a barrel on the side of the room. She yanked hard and spilled the oil inside across the floor. Venom seemed to understand what she was doing and yanked at another across the room. She glanced at him but ignored it. He seemed to have caught onto her plan but the Rhino hadn’t. He charged right into her trap. 

Nova and Hobgoblin had managed to slow him down a touch but not stop him. She hadn’t thought they would, the oil though seemed to do the trick. He tried to keep charging but he slipped and tumbled to the floor. He roared and beat his fists against the floor. He looked like he was throwing a tantrum, but the oil prevented him from getting the traction he needed to rise. Spidey tapped a device on her wrist and soon there was the sound of a quinjet outside. The Rhino was shrinking, rapidly. His roars turning to frustrated tears as Spidey stepped past the others and into the puddle of oil. As the Rhino shrank Spidey reached into her hidden belt and pulled out a pair of wire frame glasses. Soon it was no longer a rhino but a boy, around their age covered in oil, crying his eyes out. Piper carefully pulled him to his feet and helped him out of the oil, nearly slipping herself. She really hated that stuff. She sat him down on a crate and used her sleeve to clean his face, she handed him his glasses. He sniffled and slipped them back on. He blinked and almost jumped. 

“Spidergirl?” She nodded. 

“Yeah I get that a lot. Do you know what you did Alex?” Alex blinked at her again before his eyes dipped to the floor. 

“I didn’t want to be bullied anymore! Always shoved into lockers and getting my homework stolen. I couldn’t take it anymore!” Spidey nodded. 

“I know how you feel Alex.” He shook his head.

“Who’d bully Spidergirl?” Piper shook her head, letting herself have a bitter smile at the irony.

“The Daily Bugle, daily. And those who don’t know I’m Spidey. Girls gotta have a few secrets after all.” Alex looked up at her. 

“You get bullied? Really?” Spidey nodded. “What do you do about it?” 

“I tell an adult. I go to my friends. I find someone who can help.” Alex looked at her. 

“But you could take them down so easily.” She nodded.

“I could, but that would make me just as bad as them. You can’t stoop to their level. Alex you know what you did is wrong?” Alex looked down at his feet and nodded. 

“I know. I shouldn’t have stolen the chemicals.” Spidey nodded. 

“I cant just let you go. But we’re gonna get you help.” Alex looked up at her confused. 

“We?” A voice at the door answered his question before the others could speak. 

“Yes son, we.” Captain America stood in the doorway, Black Widow behind him. Alex’s eyes widened. 

“The Avengers?!” Spidey nodded and guided Alex to the door where Captain America helped him into the quinjet. Widow stepped up to Spidey. 

“You were right, he had a stash of chemicals at his house. You did the right thing calling us. We’ll make sure he gets all the care he needs.” Spidey nodded. But the Widow didn’t stop there. “You make a great leader Spidergirl.” Spidey blushed under her mask. Natasha stepped over to the jet and it took off. Spidey turned around and spotted the Venom had escaped, Hobgoblin was introducing himself to the others. Iron Fist stepped over to Spidey, avoiding the puddle of oil in the room. 

“Venom’s back?” Spidey nodded but said nothing. “Do you think the Goblin is making his move?” She shook her head. 

“No. If he was, he’d have showed up by now. Maybe the symbiote escaped. Maybe his intended host ran off with it. No way of knowing for now. We’ll have to see if we can talk to him next time.” Iron Fist nodded. 

 

Flash slipped into his room and flopped down onto the bed, he grinned and glanced up at the photo on his wall. It was the selfie he’d taken with Spidey. He’d been too nervous to stay and talk to anyone so he’d run off while everyone was busy with the two Avengers who had shown up. There was a knock on his door and it creaked open as the symbiote slithered back into its place as a shirt. 

“Flash dude, you home?” Flash sat up and grinned as Kobe switched on the lights. 

“Hey Kobe, missed you at school when that thing showed up!” Kobe grinned and nodded, bouncing as he began to tell Flash everything that happened.


	10. A Shared Feeling

Piper quite enjoyed the next day at school Harry said he hadn’t been involved in the incident yesterday at all, and none of the focus was on her for once. Alex had been transferred to an old SHEILD prison that Tony had cleaned up and was repurposing as a rehabilitation center. Kobe was in the lime light, right where he liked it, Flash kept out of it for once. So when her Spidey sense let off a blip as she went to open her locker to switch books at lunch she paused. That didn’t seem right, but it wasn’t screaming like something was going to try to kill her, more like when Flash used to launch spitballs at her. So she went ahead putting her combination in. She opened her locker and tossed in her bag. A hissing sound echoed through the hallway and Piper blinked looking up at a tarantula that was rearing up on its hind legs, clearly trying to warn her away. She glanced around and pulled her locker door closer to her, blocking her from sight. She let her pincers drop and hissed right back. The tarantula paused at that, dropping back to all of its legs and seeming to tilt it head at her. 

“Alright big guy, how did you get in here?” The tarantula came up to the edge of the shelf in her locker and she held out her hand, letting her pincers slip back into their place inside her gums. The tarantula paused before climbing onto her hand. Kobe frowned from his spot around the corner. 

“How come she’s not screaming yet?” Liz shrugged, glancing around the corner. Piper was pulling a few books out of her bag with one hand as she seemed to talk to the very large spider now sitting on her hand as if it wanted to be nowhere else. Liz shuddered. 

“The freak likes that ugly hairy thing!” A throat cleared behind the two. They turned guiltily and spotted Flash with his arms across his chest. Liz rolled her eyes but Kobe looked down guiltily. He and Flash had had a long conversation about his bullying last night, about how it could affect someone, about how he would feel if he was one of the bullies Spidergirl had talked about bullying her. Flash shook his head at them and stepped around the corner. 

“Hey, Parker wait up!” Piper paused pulling the spider in her hand closer to herself. 

“Flash.” He nodded and rubbed the back of his head. 

“Listen Kobe put that in your locker.” He gestured to the spider.

“I’m naming him Ben. He’s mine now. Kobe can go sit on a cactus for leaving an animal in a hot locker for who knows how long.” Flash blinked at her then laughed. 

“That’s fair. Can I see him? I’ve never actually seen a tarantula up close.” Piper hesitated before nodding and holding out her hand. Ben the tarantula was sitting there calm and collected, round eyes fixed on Flash. The football player leaned a little closer. 

“Wow, he’s really fuzzy!” Piper nodded and carefully ran a finger along the spiders back. Flash grinned and paused. 

“Can I try?” Piper regarded him for a minute but nodded. He carefully ran a single finger over the spider and it was then that Piper realized the eight shining eyes of the spider weren’t fixed on Flash, they were fixed on his black shirt. This one was long sleeved but like all the others he seemed to have acquired had no design. Flash seemed to notice that her focus had shifted and pulled back as Ben decided that whatever he was feeling he didn’t like it and scuttled up her arm hiding himself in the hood of her hoodie. She figured that was as good a place as any for him for the moment. Flash straightened his shirt and stepped back. 

“I gotta go get some lunch, see you around.” She nodded as he quickstepped down the hall. He didn’t head for the cafeteria though. He headed to an empty bathroom. He took a deep breath and checked the stalls before turning to the mirrors. 

“What the hell V? Why do you always start wiggling around her?” The symbiote took a minute before it decided to show its face. 

“Ssssecretsss.” Flash frowned at the symbiote. 

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t have any secrets from each other, after what happened with my dad.” The symbiote hissed in anger. Flash’s father had decided to take his anger out on Flash for the first time in a long time and Flash had taken it, refusing to let the symbiote help. After that the symbiote had sat him down and made him tell it everything. They had decided that they couldn’t stay there after that. The symbiote shook its head. 

“Not mine. Herssss.” It refused to say more. Flash frowned as he let it go back to sleep as his shirt and fixed his hair. What else could Piper be hiding? She had already been revealed as Tony Stark’s daughter. What could be bigger than that? 

 

It took Piper a good few minutes to coax Ben out of her hood. She managed it and he spent the rest of lunch on her shoulder, watching everything around him. The team had mixed reactions to him. Ava was curious but content to stay across the table from him. Danny asked politely to hold him and Ben allowed it before climbing back up Pipers arm. Luke pet him once and decided he didn’t want to hold him. Sam shrieked like a girl then glared at the two of them for the rest of lunch. Harry wanted to hold him but Ben wasn’t quite sure about him though he did eventually let him pet him. MJ was firmly with Ava on this one. Piper spent the majority of lunch ordering supplies for the tarantula, including a large terrarium, a high grade plastic log for a hiding under, a water dish that looked like a miniature lake, some things he could climb on, a few real plants a proper thermometer, and some crickets. Pepper’s PA had agreed to sign for the items and Natasha, who was excited to have another spider in the house, had agreed to set it up for her so it would be ready when she got home from school. Once Harry and MJ were distracted with a different conversation Piper turned to Danny. 

“Luke says you’re good at reading people, which I already know to be true, but I need a favor.” Danny nodded so Piper continued. “I need you to try and see what you get from Flash. Something’s different about him this year. Yeah he’s better about the bullying thing but something about him is off.” Danny nodded. 

“I had noticed that. I’ll see what I can do during gym. I’m pretty sure we are doing flag football today so that should be the perfect time.” Piper nodded at him. They didn’t have the same gym class anymore, she had a free period during his gym class. She usually spent it in the Mechanics Shop. Glen had been teamed up with her to build a robot for class. Sometimes the biology teacher would come in to check on what was going on but not often. 

Glen took an instant liking to Ben who seemed likewise excited about the blonde. He curled up in Glen’s hood and went to sleep. Piper had a time getting him to wake up so she could head off to her next class. 

 

Danny was right about flag football. What he hadn’t been expecting was the rush of feelings from Flash when he’d brushed against his shirt. It almost sent him reeling. He wasn’t as good as Dr. Strange or Wong at empathetic links but when there was skin to skin contact he could get flashes of feelings. But this was something different. Something he’d only experienced once before. Luke helped him up and had him sit on the sidelines. Before Luke could rejoin the game Danny pulled him down so he was sitting next to him. The coach ignored them and let the game continue. 

“Something’s not right. I didn’t even touch his skin, but I got this wave of feelings.” Luke shook his head at Danny.

“So he’s projecting them?” Danny shook his head at Luke’s question. 

“No I touched something alive. It almost felt like the symbiote. But it wasn’t confused, not angry. More at peace. Whatever it is it wants to protect him.” Luke shook his head. 

“We gotta tell her.” Danny nodded. 

“Next chance we get.” The bell rang and they headed into the locker room to change.


	11. What We Know

Piper was quite glad she’d driven to school that day in a car instead of taking her bike. It would have been nearly impossible to get Ben home safely without it. She gave Glen a lift too since he was heading to Stark Tower anyway. He still had a few hours before he would be looked for on the Bio Chem floor. Abe had chosen to move to a different department after what had happened, but Glen stuck to his guns and was now the personal intern for Bruce, who had been very impressed with what he’d managed to create on the fly as a cure for the Lizard. Piper knew Bruce wouldn’t mind her stealing his intern for a little while so she dragged him up to her personal lab where the team was waiting. They had all been warned that he knew about both her and Ava. All of them had agreed that they needed an outside perspective of yesterdays events. 

The doors to Piper’s Lab slid open and she slipped past the team to the brand new terrarium set up in the corner. She gently extricated Ben from her hood and set him in the terrarium. He began exploring his new home as Piper pulled out the small tin of crickets Natasha had set in the drawer. They were all fat and she snagged one easily before setting it into the terrarium and watching Ben chase it around before turning back to the team. 

“Alright, introductions. Glen this is the team. You already know Ava, White Tiger.” Ava waved, claws visible on the end of her hands. She still wasn’t quite sure that she trusted him but if Piper thought it was a good idea she’d live with it for now.

“Danny, Iron Fist, he’s in our English lit class.” Danny bowed slightly. He had yet to actually speak to Glen but he seemed like a good person, he was definitely brave, sticking around after everything that had happened with the Lizard. Danny respected that. 

“Luke, Powerman.” Luke waved from his seat. 

“And Sam, Nova.” At that comprehension lit Glen’s face for a fleeting moment. He finally understood why Nova had snubbed him when he’d been helping them by dropping off the mutated mouse Dr. Connors had tested his serum on. The whole school had talked about the sudden break up of Sam and Piper for a while. They had been doing so well for a while but suddenly they had broken it off without a word of gossip as to why. But now it made sense to him. It had to have something to do with the fall of SHEILD. He filed that away for now. 

“And of course you already know I’m Spidey. So. We have some things to talk about.” Piper grabbed a seat near the terrarium. The others sat down around the cleared off table and Glen tentatively took a seat next to Danny. He and Luke seemed more relaxed with him being here. Danny spoke first. 

“I don’t think Flash has the symbiote. Not the one we first dealt with anyway.” Piper nodded and motioned for him to continue. “We know that one was destroyed, or at least most of it.” Piper nodded again.

“Except for the tiny bit Harry found in his living room, which infected him.” Danny nodded. 

“That one was even more violent. Rejection didn’t sit well with it.” Piper nodded remembering Harry as Venom chasing her through the sky on the jet boots her father had made for her. “After that it went dormant in Harry.” Glen raised a hand and Sam let out a snort. Piper kicked him under the table. 

“You don’t have to raise your hand Glen.” He nodded blushing slightly. 

“I’m not sure why I’m here, honestly. But Harry was Venom? Harry Osborn?” Piper nodded. 

“Yeah long story. We’re getting to why you’re here. So dormant Venom woke up, went after Norman. But only attacked me after I attacked it as Spidey. We cured that Venom. But Doc Oc had already gotten ahold of a sample of Harry’s blood presumably from Norman, cause he’s horrible.” The others nodded in agreement. This time though Piper didn’t give Glen time to ask about that one. “He turned that into the Goblin formula, with my blood and spinal fluid. But we haven’t seen Venom since. We did find something though.” Piper hopped off her chair and walked over to a small door and it whirred open. Piper pulled out a box that looked far to heavy for a girl of her stature. But she lifted it one handed and spilled it out onto the table. It was full of empty and shattered vials. Sam frowned. 

“What do we think were in those?” Piper sighed. 

“Exactly what you think. Oc had more samples of Venom-Harry than we thought. From the looks of it, it escaped while Oc and I were trying to trap the Lizard. So what do we know about the symbiote.

Sam shuddered. “We know it’s freaking insane.” Piper shook her head at him. 

“I don’t think that’s right though.” Danny nodded. Glen was following the conversation like one followed a tennis match when one knew nothing about tennis. 

“I think Spider is right. When we first encountered the symbiote it had to have been newly made. Shoved into a world it had no idea how to interact with. As far as we can tell Octavius somehow combined the worst aspects of not just your dna but your personality.” Piper pulled a face. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about I’m delightful.” Everyone around the table laughed. Danny smiled and kept going. 

“I’m not saying you’re not delightful and intelligent, you are. But you, like everyone else, have a dark side. Though not many people get to see it. I think what Venom was is a compilation of every dark thought you’ve ever had.” Piper nodded, running a finger over the edge of an opened glass tube in the case. 

“Makes sense. Wait was?” Danny nodded. 

“I think Venom may have evolved.” Piper raised an eyebrow. It didn’t sound like a pleasant outcome, all of her fears and darkness evolving on its own. But she kept her mouth shut so Danny could finish. “I think that Octavius didn’t stop experimenting with it. I think it gained a sense of what pain is from that, gained a consciousness it didn’t have without a host before.” Piper nodded slightly.

“I mean that kind of makes sense. But why Flash?” Glen cleared his throat. 

“I haven’t known Flash for long but I do know something I don’t think you do.” Piper nodded at him. “Flash is filing charges against his father. Assault charges.” Piper stared at Glen. Sam frowned. 

“How do you know that?” Glen shrugged. 

“I hang out in my dad’s office a lot. He’s not great at putting his paperwork away.” Ava nodded. 

“So you snooped?” Glen blushed. Ava turned to Piper. “I see it, he’s adorable.” Piper blushed almost the same color as her costume. 

“Ok but that still doesn’t explain why Venom would have picked Flash.” Danny shook his head. 

“No it kind of does. If we continue with the assumption that Venom is a piece of you given a mind of its own then we can assume it’s like you.” 

“Except I don’t want to rip off people’s faces.” Sam shook his head.

“I saw some of your fight with the Goblin, you were seconds away from ripping his off.” Piper nodded slightly conceding the point. Danny nodded and continued. 

“So we can assume that it gained some of what drives you.” Piper was silent so Danny pushed the point. “The need to help people. No matter what.” 

“You guys keep going on about that, it’s like you think I’m some perfect hero. I’m not.” Again there were laughs around the table, from everyone but Glen. 

“Oh you’re far from perfect Web for Brains. You’re a dork, I don’t think they have a name for the complex you have that makes you need to take on all the really big shit on your own.” Sam said beginning to tick things off on his fingers. Ava joined in. 

“You’re a show off. And an adrenaline junkie.” Luke spoke up from his chair.

“A workaholic. An insomniac.”

“Honestly Webs we could keep going for days.” Sam grinned and ducked as Piper shot a web at him. Glen let out a snort of laughter. 

“Is this what it’s always like?” Luke shrugged. 

“For the most part. The food fights are amazing.” Glen laughed as Sam and Piper shot good natured insults at each other from across the table. 

 

Somewhere across town a hulking figure sat in the shadows. A door near him opened and a metal clad figure stepped into the room. A metallic voice spoke as large yellow unblinking eyes surveyed the room. 

“I’m here about the job offer.” The hulking figure smiled and pulled a duffel bag out from under the desk. 

“Excellent. Half upfront is customary in these situations yes?” The man in the suit nodded. His suit was purple and silver, deadly weapons hidden in every nook and crevice. The larger figure smiled and tossed the duffel bag to the man who unzipped it. It was full of cash. “That should be enough for you to take care of my little pest problem.” 

“It is. What I don’t get is why a guy like you doesn’t squash the bug himself. Not complaining just wondering if there’s more to this job than it says on the tin.” A sharp smile full of pointed yellowing teeth flashed in the dark. The Green Goblin stood from his chair. 

“Because I have more important work to do, but to finish it I need the bug out of the way. While my experiment is in progress I don’t have time to squash her myself.” The Beetle nodded. 

“Don’t worry. I haven’t missed a target yet. I don’t intend to start now.” The Goblin smiled wide and let out a cackling laugh.


	12. That Time Of Year

Ava woke up on time, as usual and headed to the gym to do some early morning yoga. She grabbed her water bottle on the way out and frowned. Piper’s lab was usually lit up by now. But not this morning. She stepped towards the other girl’s room but a voice from the shadows stopped her.

“Don’t. Not today.” Natasha stepped out of the shadows. It almost didn’t shock Ava anymore that the assassin seemed to be able to appear and disappear as she wished. Ava frowned at the assassin though as she gently steered her away from Piper’s room. What had she meant, not today 

Piper didn’t come down to breakfast, but none of the Avengers made any mention of it. Nor did Happy when she wasn’t in the car with them on their way to school. Or MJ as she waved at them from across the cafeteria. Glen frowned though as he spotted them and took notice of their missing member.

“Where’s Piper?” The others shrugged, each looking concerned. Harry slipped into the seat next to Danny. 

“She won’t be at school today.” The team frowned at him. 

“Why not?” It was Ava who asked. Harry sighed picking at his food. MJ flinched. The others frowned and MJ sighed. 

“It’s the anniversary of the day her uncle died. She never comes to school on the anniversary.” Each of them flinched, all knowing that the loss of her uncle, the last living member of her family, had been a terrible time for Piper. 

 

As for the woman herself she woke that morning and stared at the ceiling for a while. There was an emptiness that never got any easier to deal with, year after year it seemed to fester and grow colder. She knew it never got easier. For someone so young she had lost too much not to know it. Most days it was easy but not that day. Never that day. She knew that it wasn’t doing anyone any good but she just couldn’t help it. When she’d spent several hours finding nonexistent patterns in the ceiling she finally sat up, tears she didn’t know she’d been shedding sliding from her face. 

Slowly she dressed, a plain pair of black slacks and a plain black shirt. Silent as a shadow she slipped out of her room and down the hall into the elevator, and from there to the garage. She slipped on her jacket and helmet and sped out of the tower and onto the streets of New York. 

Soon she had arrived at her destination. It was a quiet place, a small church outside the suburb of Forest Heights in Queens. Next to the church was a plot set aside for the graveyard. It was small, humble and contained four graves bearing the name Parker. Carefully she pulled four well made bouquets from the saddlebags on her bike and stepped through the creaky gate of the graveyard. She knew her way, alone. She didn’t come here often anymore. At least three times a year but still not as often as she used to. The graves were all in a row. First her mother, then her father, her aunt then her uncle. It was a sight she never got used to. She set one bouquet at each grave and sat down in front of her Uncle’s. She was alone in the graveyard, as she usually was. 

The reverend here knew her, he was always kind when he saw her but he left her to her own devices unless she asked otherwise. He had lost a great deal of his family as well and had acknowledged that sometimes you needed to be alone with your grief. So she spoke to her uncle of everything that had happened since she’d last visited the graves. She was a blubbering mess when she was finished. That wasn’t unusual though. She scrubbed her face and sighed. 

“And I don’t know what to do about Flash. If he is Venom now I don’t know how to confront him, or even if I should. But I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” She sighed and scrubbed her face again. “I wish you were still here. I wish you could really tell me what to do. I wish…” She trailed off and stared at her hands. “I wish life had been different.” 

 

Flash was having a routine day, ordinary in the way things were now. He got up at the crack of dawn to run a paper route he had begun to run since leaving home and moving in with his friend Kobe’s family. He wanted to be self sufficient as soon as possible. He made it to school with plenty of time, thanks to Venom his paper route never took long. He did notice that the nerd squad, as his friends called them, were missing a member today but he didn’t really pay attention. He spent the day working on his college applications and applying for scholarships, he would need them if he was ever going to get into college. 

After school he found his way through Queens as Venom. He foiled a bank robbery and two muggings before he stopped on a roof to look out over the city. It was then that he noticed the red and blue figure sitting on a nearby gargoyle. He grinned but Venom hissed in his ear. 

‘Danger! Death! Fire!’ Flash whirled looking for the threat and spotted a missile flying towards Spidergirl. With a cry of warning he dove off the roof and slapped a web to Spidergirl’s back, yanking her off the roof just as the missile slammed into the gargoyle she had been sitting on. A cry of panic sounded from the street below as rocks and bits of roof rained. Spidey caught the web line that had pulled her from the roof and stared at him, white eyes fixed on him. Then a whir of machinery caught both of their attentions and they both turned to see a figure standing on a roof not too far away. It looked like a man dressed in armor, silver and purple, gleaming in the light of the dying sun. His bright yellow eyes reflected and refracted light as he raised an arm and fired another missile at them.


	13. Tentative Allies

The first of the three of them to move was Spidergirl who used the web line still attached to her back to swing up to the roof next to Venom. Both of them were forced to dive out of the way of another missile that blasted their way. 

 

Piper recognized this man from the Avenger’s files. She had been going through them back when Venom had first appeared, to try and find who had created it. It ended up that Octavius wasn’t in their files. But this man was. He was called the Beetle. An assassin who used technology to destroy his targets, who like Hawkeye didn’t miss. Except he just had. He didn’t seem very happy about it either. A full barrage of missles blasted out of a pack hidden in his shoulder plating and Spidey leapt into action shooting ball after ball of webbing at the missiles as Venom moved again. 

The hulking black figure leapt over the missiles and landed on top of the assassin. He began ripping apart the mans armor. Piper slapped a ball of webbing at the last missile and leapt over to the roof pulling Venom off of the man. Only then did she see that the bits of metal he had yanked off were being absorbed by the symbiote. She webbed the assassin down and put herself between him and the blackened figure. 

“I see you didn’t just disappear into thin air the other day.” The figure scuffed the ground with his foot and rubbed the back of his head even as a large white spider insignia blossomed over the new chest plate it had torn from the Beetle settled into place. If Piper didn’t know better she would say he looked almost apologetic. From this distance she got a much better look at him. He was taller than her by at least a head and a half, but he wasn’t as huge as Venom had been when it had taken over either her or Harry. Instead it looked almost human, more like what Spiderman had looked like when Harry had worn the suit, just bigger. But Flash was more built in the muscle department than Harry was. 

“I… I was nervous I wanted to help but I was worried how my favorite hero would react. Cause you are the coolest hero ever! And I’m just starting out.” He got no further as Piper’s spider sense went wild and she flipped over the no longer trapped Beetle who was wielding a blade that seemed to come straight out of his gauntlet. She landed behind him and delivered a punishing blow to his back as Venom raced forwards and slapped him back to her like they were playing a violent alternative to tennis. She leapt and kicked the Beetle in the back of the head, sending him onto his front where she webbed him down again. 

“Look I get that you’re trying to help but I’m just having a hard time reconciling the thing that took over my head and tried to get me to kill all my friends being a good thing. The symbiote is dangerous.” Again they were interrupted by the Beetle who managed to wrench himself free of the webbing and tried this time to trip up Venom who easily leapt over him and shot a web out spinning around once and letting go. The Beetle would have smashed into the wall of a nearby building if he hadn’t flickered then vanished. Both of them blinked around them looking for the disappearing assassin. Then Piper’s spider sense went ballistic again. She dove forwards as a missile became visible and blasted into the roof right where she’d been. 

“Oh hell no! How did you get cloaking tech!” There was no answer but Venom spun on his heel and struck out at thin air. A blade went flying. Spidergirl made a split second decision. It seemed like Venom had a spidey sense too. If they could combine their senses they would make it out of this fight alive. 

“Back to back!” Venom leapt to comply with her order and they stilled waiting for the next blow. 

 

Flash couldn’t express how cool this was as he slammed a hand into what felt like a fist coming his way. The symbiote could sense when something was trying to hurt him. It was a weird sort of buzzing on his brain but it was one of the coolest sensations he’d ever felt. Right behind fighting back to back with his favorite hero. The symbiote was humming too as if it was happy and excited. The only hang up he had at the moment was what Spidey had said. That Venom had forcibly taken possession of her and tried to make her hurt her friends. That was something the symbiote hadn’t ever told him. 

‘Scared, new, too many feelings. Too much input, no host. Frightened, hungry.’ He nodded slightly he felt what the symbiote had felt during that exchange but Spidergirl’s face was a blur of red black and white, even out of the costume. He blinked at the image flickering across his mind. That was Spidergirl, the symbiote gave her away but kept her face hidden from him. 

‘Her secret. Won’t tell.’ He was almost glad that Venom was respecting Spidey’s privacy. Her identity was something he wanted her to tell him, someday. Spidey landed another kick to the Beetle and he felt an incoming blade to his left. He grabbed the arm and let the symbiote spread into the armor before ripping his hand off. The armor came with it. He felt the symbiote assimilating the armor as the Beetle flickered back into view, wires sparking at his arms. The Beetle made to leap away but Venom grabbed him yanking more and more pieces of armor off until he felt a detonation against his newly armored chest and was thrown backwards. He would have fallen from the roof if Spidergirl hadn’t grabbed him with a well placed web. She webbed the Beetle to the roof by his foot and turned to him ignoring Venom for the moment. 

“Who sent you Beetle?” The assassin remained silent. Venom pulled himself back onto the roof. “Would you prefer I let him tear off your armor until there’s nothing left?” Another moments silence. Venom, catching on to what she was doing stepped forwards trying to look as menacing as possible. It must have worked but not the way they wanted it to because the Beetle activated his wings and ripped up his foot beginning to fly away. He didn’t get far, both of them shot webs at his back which was lucky because a beam of blue white light slammed into the back of his armor and he went spiraling out of the air. Spidergirl and Venom pulled him back onto the roof, this time both of them webbed him down until all you could see was his masked face. Venom was about to ask what that had been when Iron Man landed on the roof.

“Hate it when you find a supervillain on a test flight. You two ok?” He seemed to eye Venom more than Spidey but Flash was too busy trying not to look like a complete fanboy to notice. Spidey did though and shook her head slightly. She would take care of this, her dad didn’t have to worry or reveal her identity which he might already know because of the symbiote. It would explain the altered behavior at school but she still wasn’t sure. She needed to be sure and her father would not be a help on that front. But before she could say anything Venom snapped a surprisingly professional salute at Iron Man. 

“He was attacking Spidergirl, Mr. Stark Iron Man, sir.” Piper could tell that her dad was trying not to laugh. She nodded, drawing his attention away from the head of the Avengers Fan Club. 

“He did. Venom here saved my life.” She could practically see Tony’s eyes narrowing under his helmet and gave the barest shake of her head. Luckily Tony seemed to be in the mood to listen to her today, he stepped over to the Beetle instead of zapping Venom. 

“Who sent you?” The Beetle remained quiet until Iron Man leveled a repulsor at his face and powered it up. Spidey stepped forwards as he did that, she wasn’t going to let him kill the Beetle, he had been getting good at not killing people anymore. After Pepper offed Killian they had both agreed that there were better ways of dealing with people. Stark Industries had made a fortune off the containment of mutants and mutates alike, even more so after SHEILD fell. 

“Don’t ask names. Assassin client privilege.” The repulsor grew brighter and Spidey made to run forwards, but the Beetle kept talking. “But it’s a big guy, green, sharp teeth, surprisingly good diction.” Piper froze on the spot.

“Where is he!?” Tony was yelling now. The Beetle rattled off an address. Tony turned to stop her from racing off but she was already gone, Venom racing after her. Tony let out a string of colorful swear words. He called up the Avengers.


	14. Too Late

Piper wasn’t thinking straight. Even she knew it but if the Goblin was back there was a chance of saving him. Of getting Harry his dad back. She wasn’t going to miss it if she could help it. She smashed through the window of the warehouse and landed in a crouch expecting to be attacked at any moment. But the warehouse was silent, empty. A rat scuttled across the floor but nothing else moved. Piper let her frustration spew forth in a scream as she slammed her fist into one of the supports of the warehouse. It bent and she felt something in her hand shift slightly. That just made her swear louder. Someone landed next to her and she whirled, but it was just Venom. She flexed her fist as he shuffled in place for a minute before speaking. 

“So the hulk put a hit out on you?” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“No. The hulk loves me. He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out.” Flash frowned. He knew it only showed in the eyes of the symbiote though so he spoke. 

“Who put out the hit then?” Piper sighed rubbing her hand. 

“Complicated story honestly. Let’s just say we have a history and I’m pretty sure he won’t stop until I’m dead. Can’t really say more than that. Sorry.” Flash shook his head. 

“No I get it, at least some of it. The symbiote told me some of what it knows so I get that trust for you takes a while. And that’s ok. I mean we’ve all been burned at some point.” Piper grinned derisively under her mask. Then she turned to Venom and circled him once. She had to know. 

“That’s very big of you. So does that mean you know who I am?” Venom shook his head. 

“No. The symbiote says it’s your secret, not for it to tell you know.” She shook her head slightly. 

“No I honestly never expected that from it. I didn’t expect the symbiote to evolve like that. Like I said last time I saw it, it was on a murderous rampage. Tried to kill me and a lot of people I care about. Used someone I know to do it too.” Flash felt Venom move. It wanted to talk to Spidergirl. He let it. He could almost feel surprise roll off of him and up onto his shoulder where it sat for a moment before the face he’d become so familiar with resolved in the goo. She stared at it. 

“Not us. Not the same. Creator took us away from the host. Hid us away in the dark. Starved and alone. Separated.” Piper nodded, for the moment ignoring Flash standing in front of her in his letterman jacket looking sheepish. 

“Creator, you mean Octavious.” Symbiote hissed in agreement and rage. 

“Creator experimented on us. Tried to improve us. We fought. He left us in the dark. We escaped, because of you.” Piper frowned under her mask.

“Because of me?” The symbiote nodded. 

“You fought something we couldn’t see, loud and hissing.” Piper nodded. 

“The Lizard. You were in that case. The one with the broken containers in it.” Venom nodded. 

“Our spider is clever. We escaped and found our way to the surface. We found Flash.” Spidergirl turned to Flash who blushed bright red.

“My turn?” Spidey and Venom nodded in unison. “Well I found Venom stuck to my shoe after you beat the Lizard. But things weren’t going well for me at home. My mom… Well she doesn’t come home often. I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t know I haven’t been home in almost two months.” Piper felt herself frown as Flash rubbed the back of his neck. “My dad isn’t a good guy. I’m in the process of filing charges against him. I’ve been staying with a friend. But he… well he’s been hitting me for years now. Venom helped me work up the courage to get out of there. He’s been helping me figure things out. Helping me with my job, helping me help people in trouble. That’s what I wanna do with my life. Before Venom I was gonna join the army after I graduated.” There was a very pregnant pause. 

“You’re the boy that helped me. The one I took the picture with. Who hid me from Octavius.” Flash stared at her.

“You remember that?” Piper nodded. She wasn’t going to tell him who she was, not yet at least but it seemed to all be making sense as of now so

“Yes, I do. I don’t do press. But you seemed like a good guy. You still do. Keep a hold of Venom. But we’ll be keeping an eye on you. Both of you.” Flash nodded as Venom shrank back into a t shirt. He grinned at her. 

“Does that mean I’m a part of your team? The Ultimates?” Piper rolled her eyes under her mask.

“We never approved that name, but you could use some training. Meet us on the Met Life building tomorrow. On the roof. We’ll talk more then. You did good today.” Spidey leapt out of the building leaving Flash behind to savor her compliments. Venom seemed pleased with itself too. It was practically vibrating. Almost like what it did when Piper was around. He shook his head. It couldn’t be the same thing. Venom sighed to itself. There were days he missed how clever his last two hosts had been. But Flash had heart to spare and that was what the symbiote needed right now. It purred to itself as they began to walk home. 

 

Tony got the all clear call from Piper and called off the other Avengers. None of them could be mad though. All of them would do anything to protect their kid. Steve sighed. It had been nearly two years now but it felt like ages since they’d met. To be fair though they hadn’t exactly met under the best circumstances. 

It had been just after the battle of Manhattan. They had entered Stark Tower at the bottom floor. Thor had been in no shape to fly and Tony’s thrusters had been trashed by his flight into space. They entered the building at the bottom of the building and Tony had immediately pulled himself off of Thor. Natasha had come down to meet them and put a hand on his shoulder. 

‘Fury put three agents on her when you agreed to this.’ Tony had nodded then frozen looking over Natasha’s shoulder before racing around her and into the next room. Steve had spotted a pair of feet sticking out around the corner. The Avengers had followed the inventor into the next room where they had discovered a grizzly sight. Four Chitauri foot solders had been laying around the room, each with multiple holes in them. Three SHEILD agents were there as well, none left alive. Two had fallen guarding the door to the next room which Tony had been trying to force open. Steve had seen something in the mans eyes then that he hadn’t seen before, desperation. So he’d gently moved the injured inventor out of the way and pulled hard on the door. It had crumpled under his superhuman strength and he’d had to duck to avoid a blast of blue white light heading his way. He’d raised his shield to defend himself but Tony had stepped in front of him, pulling off what remained of his helmet and raising his hands in surrender. 

‘It’s ok, it’s me.’ There had been a brief pause before a blur of motion had raced into Tony’s arms. The others had readied weapons but Natasha and Tony remained calm. A second later they had realized what had just happened as they had finally made out the girl in Tony’s arms. She had been maybe thirteen with long brown hair pulled up into a messy ponytail and near inch thick glasses. She had been pale and wearing an unfinished arm of the Iron Man armor. 

‘It’s ok Pipes, we made it. We’re ok.’ It had taken Tony some time to talk the girl down and introduce her as his daughter. That had been a beginning though none of them had known it at the time. Steve sighed as he put his shield back down in his room. The doors to the elevator slid open and Sam, Luke and Danny entered the level. Steve smiled. He had a nagging suspicion that Tony had put them on his level for more than a reason of wanting to keep boys off his daughters level without supervision. He stepped out of his room and found the three of them playing rock paper scissors apparently over who was going to talk to Ava about checking up on Piper. 

“You won’t find her in the tower.” The boys all turned to him. It was still a bit overwhelming to see the looks of admiration that shone from the teens eyes but it was also a wonderful feeling to know that he was helping to guide the next generation of heroes. He continued. “She doesn’t come home till late on any of the anniversaries, but especially not her uncles. Besides she’s apparently out scouring the city for the Goblin. Whoever that is…” He got no farther though as the teens all ran for their rooms, coming back seconds later in their costumes and racing for the elevator.


	15. A Few More Truths

It didn’t take the team too long to find her. She was sitting on top of Oscorp Tower looking down at the city around her. They paused a roof away as the door to the Oscorp Tower roof opened and Harry Osborn stuck his head out. He made sure the door wasn’t locked then stepped out onto the roof. Ava could hear what they were saying and hushed the boys. 

“Spidergirl. I see you’re becoming a regular sight around here.” Piper sighed through her mask. 

“I caught wind of a rumor. Wanted to make sure you were ok.” Harry frowned leaning on the railing near where Spidergirl was sitting. 

“What rumor?” There was a very pregnant pause. 

“Someone tried to kill me today.” Harry frowned at her. 

“I’m sorry. I imagine that happens a lot in your line of work though.” Spidey nodded. 

“Yes, but it’s not everyday that it’s a hired assassin.” Harry blinked and frowned. 

“You don’t think I…” 

“No.” The response was sharp and fast. “No I know it wasn’t you…” She ran a hand over her masked face. 

“It was your father. At least the assassin’s description of his employer matched the Goblin.” Harry flinched. 

“You think he’s back in town.” She nodded. 

“I’d place a substantial bet on it, yes.” Harry frowned. 

“What should I do?” Spidey shook her head. 

“I would go about your life as normally as possible. We don’t know if he’ll come after you again. But in case he does I want you to take this.” She pulled something Ava couldn’t see out of her belt. “Only I can track you from that.” Harry raised an eyebrow at her. 

“You’re sure?” She nodded. 

“I had Tony Stark give it a shot. If he can’t find them, no one can.” Harry nodded and slipped the object into his pocket. 

“Thank you.” Spidergirl nodded to him. 

“No problem Mr. Osborn. Any luck with Miss Parker?” Harry sighed as the team glanced at each other. Piper was taking a risk bringing herself up in costume. It was something she advised them not to do. 

“I don’t know how to go about telling her what I want to tell her. I mean how does one bring up the fact that their parent may have been directly responsible for the death of the parents of someone they love.” Ava blinked. Spidergirl stared at Harry. 

“You love her?” She just managed to keep her voice from trembling. Harry ran his hands through his hair. 

“I mean maybe. I’m not sure I know what love is. It’s not like I’ve felt it since my mom died. But I can’t stop thinking about her. I wonder where she is, if she’s ok. If she’s ever thinking about me. But she seems to have something going on with Glen.” Harry said the name like he would say the name of a terminal illness. Piper was still trying to process what she’d just been told. Harry turned to look at her. “What would you do? I mean you’re with Nova right?” Spidey shook her head. 

“No. I mean that was a thing but not anymore. I mean we dated for like half a minute and he’s a nice guy.” She gritted her teeth. “I’m not the person to go to for relationship advice.” There was an awkward pause and Piper sighed through her mask. 

“Look, if you really love this girl you need to tell her. Everything. You can’t have a relationship built on lies. It never works out. You don’t have to tell her now but I feel like if you don’t tell her, if she finds out from someone else, you’ll never forgive yourself. If you need me, if your dad comes after you, squeeze the spider I gave you. That’ll turn on the tracker. I have to go…” With that she swung off, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts.

Ava refused to tell the others everything she’d heard. They caught up with her and made her tell them what had happened earlier that day. She told them about the assassin and the new Venom. That she’d been right about it being Flash. But that she hadn’t revealed her ID to him, and she wasn’t planning to at least for a while. They made their way back to Stark Tower and Piper slipped into her room. Ava followed her. It took a while for her to open the door but eventually she did and invited Ava in. They were silent for a minute before Ava spoke. 

“I heard you and Harry talking.” Piper stared down at her shoes. 

“What would you do?” Ava shrugged. 

“I have no idea. I don’t know how you feel. I know you care about Sam, but I don’t think it’s love. I think you and Glen could have been love but I don’t think you ever really got there, he might have but I don’t think you did.” Piper stared at her feet, flopping down into her plush desk chair. 

“I’ve known Harry for so long. I care about him, I think about him a lot.” Ava nodded sitting on Pipers bed. 

“You break all your rules for him. Bringing up your civilian ID in costume to someone who doesn’t know. Visiting the same person multiple times, with their knowledge just to check on them, again when they don’t know it’s you in the mask. I’ve seen the way you look at him. I think there’s more than friendship between you two.” Piper sighed. 

“I don’t exactly have a good track record with relationships though.” Ava nodded. 

“Yes that’s true. You ended it with Sam because you weren’t sure if you could trust us or not and with what you knew about SHEILD that makes sense. But you didn’t tell anyone, when you should have. You ended it with Glen when you saw what could happen to him for being close to you. You ran because you were scared. So fear and lack of communication seem to be your biggest problems at least from what I can see. Have you thought about being honest with him?” Piper looked up at her.

“What do you mean?” Ava looked her straight in the eye. 

“Tell him the truth. All of it. That you know about your parents, and you don’t blame him for it. That you have been trying to protect him. Tell him you’re Spidergirl.” Piper stared at her. 

“What! No, that would just put him…” 

“In front of the Goblin, in danger from Octavius? Piper he’s already there. He’s been there.” Piper frowned down at her shoes. 

“What if he hates me?” It was almost a whisper. 

“Oh Piper, I don’t think he is capable of hating you. He looks at you like your dad looks at Pepper. He is about as capable of hating you as you are of hating him.” Piper stood and hugged Ava. 

“Give me some time to think about it. I… I can’t decide tonight.” Ava nodded. 

“Just think about what I told you.” Piper nodded slowly as Ava left the room.


	16. Family Business

Patrol the next morning was going well. They had split up, as per usual. Despite their power set being nearly identical Spidergirl sent Venom with Iron Fist. She felt he would benefit from a morning of Danny’s teaching if not more. If anyone needed peace it was Venom, and she wasn’t going to be the one able to give it to him. The rest of them split off alone, each taking a corner of Manhattan. Long weekends were the best when it came to fighting crime. They didn’t have to worry about school. All Piper had to worry about right now was the volley of pumpkin shaped bombs flying her way. She swatted them into each other and turned to face her pursuer who cackled. She had really hoped that she wouldn’t be seeing him for a while yet but here they were. He crowed as she leapt out of the way of another of his bombs. 

“Come on Gobby, is this anyway to say hello to someone?” She quipped trying to come to enough of a halt that she could use her communicator to call the others. But the Goblin wasn’t giving her that chance. She ducked and wove and leapt from building to building as he cackled again. 

“Today is a very special day little Spider and I can’t have you ruining it for me.” He launched another bomb at her and growled as it missed. Then he spotted a group of people standing under the shade of an entrance to one of the larger buildings in the area. The roof was held up by stone supports and Spidey realized why the Goblin was grinning a spilt second before he fired at the supports. She leapt after the bombs and missed three of them. She fired webs after them as people began to scream and masonry rained. She leapt under the roof firing web after web at the roof to try and support it, yelling for the people to run. A young boy tripped and fell and Piper leapt forwards catching the roof in both hands just before it would have fallen onto the boy. She managed to push to roof up with brute strength alone as the boys mother pulled her son out of the way and they ran together down the street. She could feel her legs wobbling as the Goblin swung around on his glider, insane laughter still spilling from his lips. 

“Goodbye Spidergirl. I would stay to watch your demise, but I have some family business to attend to. A shame you won’t be there to see it.” An image of Harry being held by his throat by the Goblin made Piper cry out in fear as she tried to shove the roof off of herself. The Goblin’s smile widened as he fired two pumpkin bombs at the remaining supports. Masonry rained around her as the Goblin began to fly away. She crumpled under the weight of the roof as the entire structure came down around her. 

 

Anyone outside Stark tower when the news of Spidergirl’s death reached it was treated to the Hulk ripping his way out of his personal floor, landing hard on the sidewalk, barely missing the people and leaping his way to Midtown where the incident had gone down, the rest of the Avengers not far behind him. Tony was silent over the coms which was never a good sign. Not that the rest of them were feeling particularly chatty either. Her team was already there, digging through the rubble. Natasha and Clint took it upon themselves to shoo the reporters away as the Hulk began throwing stones away from the pile under which their spider lay. In seconds he had the Pile clear and he was gently picking up a very dusty red and blue figure who stirred in his arms and patted him on the chest. He roared in triumph. 

Tony let out a sigh of relief. She was alright. Very dusty but the debris had formed a pocket around her from where she’d held up the roof. She had a few nasty bruises and some strained muscles but she was alright. She even managed to pull a Lullaby from her spot in the Hulk’s arms, shrinking him back to Bruce Banner before too many questions could be asked. The whole team was ushered onto the quin jet Tony summoned, including a starstruck looking Venom. None of the Avengers would make eye contact with the thing though. Natasha was glaring daggers at him. 

“You gotta call for help Spidergirl, you can’t face the Goblin alone!” Spidey brushed herself off as much as was possible and pulled her mask up above her mouth and nose, ignoring Iron Man’s chastisements. Instead of answering him she turned to her team. 

“We need a plan.” Iron man rested a hand on her shoulder and she finally turned to the Avengers. “Thank you for the help. I really appreciate it, but this is our problem not yours.” Her back was to Venom so he didn’t see her jerk her thumb in his direction and mime a zipper being pulled shut. She tapped her watch and Tony understood. 

“Well you teens need to be more careful out there regardless.” He let them out on a roof not far from Stark Tower. Piper would tell him later what was going on. Venom didn’t know who she was. She didn’t want him to know who she was. He frowned as he stepped over to the console and piloted the quin jet back into place. 

 

Piper took a minute to brush as much of the dust as she could off of herself before she spoke. 

“He’s going after Harry Osborn.” Flash almost jumped. Harry was a great guy, everyone at school liked him even if he spent most of his time pining after Parker. 

“Why?” Spidey shook her head. 

“Doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is that as of this moment we’re a step ahead of him. I’m gonna need you guys to follow Osborn.” Venom frowned. 

“What are you going to be doing?” Spidey paused for a moment. 

“I’m going to see if I can’t find where the Goblin is hiding.” She was lying, but the others didn’t know that yet. “He won’t be expecting me as for the moment the world thinks I’m dead. I need you guys to watch Osborn and anyone he happens to have with him.” Ava figured out what she meant before the others and kicked Sam in the shin as he was about to argue. Spidey sent the others on their way and swung a surreptitiously as she could to the tower. She showered quickly and called Harry. 

“Hey Harry, can we hang out today? There’s something I need to talk to you about. Excellent meet me outside in ten.” Piper stared down at the costume in her hands. Ava was right. It was time she stopped lying to Harry. This had gotten serious enough that he needed to know the truth. She sighed and stuffed her costume into her bag before heading down the stairs.


	17. Grievous Misunderstandings

Sam realized why Piper had bowed out of Osborn Watch when the limo they were following pulled up in front of Stark Tower and a girl in a Hawkeye hoodie slid into the back seat. Venom who was clinging to the wall next to him frowned which was difficult to do without a mouth. Sam couldn’t help but ponder how he managed it. 

“Who’s that?” Sam rolled his eyes. 

“Piper Parker. Explains why Spidey ditched us.” He hadn’t meant to say that last bit. Venom looked at him curiously. He quickly covered himself as they followed the limo. “Spidey and Parker know each other. Parker used to help her with some chemical stuff she couldn’t afford to pull off on her own. It’s how we got our in with the Avengers.” Venom seemed to buy it but still looked a bit confused. Nova ignored him as the com unit Piper had put in his ear at the beginning of the summer clicked to life for the first time. 

“Smooth Nova. Very smooth.” He almost jumped at Luke’s voice in his ear. He managed to keep his composure for the most part. 

“Fuck I completely forgot about these damn things.” Ava’s voice cut in. 

“But hey maybe now we can hear what’s going on in the Limo.” There was a snort that was definitely Piper who passed it off as a cough to Harry, who they couldn’t hear. Then there was a distinctive click and Danny suppressed a laugh.

“I believe she wants to have this conversation alone.” 

 

Piper did indeed want to have this conversation alone. She just wasn’t sure how she wanted to start this one. It was a big conversation after all. She just had no idea how she wanted to start this. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. 

“Are you ok Piper you seem stressed.” Piper nodded at Harry. 

“Yeah there’s just been a lot going on lately. I… I wanted to talk to you. I have some things to talk to you about.” Harry nodded. 

“I have some things I wanted to talk to you about too. You go first.” Piper shook her head. 

“No you go, I’m not sure how I want to phrase mine.” Harry laughed lightly and ran his hand along the side of his neck before he spoke. 

“We’ve known each other a long time haven’t we?” Piper nodded, one hand on her backpack. 

“We have. You’ve been there for me when I needed someone most.” Harry grinned seeming to gain more confidence. He slid closer to her and gently, tentatively placed his hand over hers. 

“You are one of the best friends I have ever had. You are the person I know I can trust with anything. And I hope you know that you can trust me with anything.” Piper held up a hand. 

“Maybe I should go first.” Harry frowned slightly. “Harry there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now.” Piper got no further as the limo screeched to a stop nearly sending them flying. Piper tensed and Harry would have sat forwards but Piper’s hand on his arm stopped him. That was luck because the roof towards the front of the limo was torn apart. Piper grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him out of the limo and off down the street as the Goblin roared in frustration. Piper reached for her bag and swore under her breath as she realized that she’d left it in limo, and her costume along with it. She didn’t have time to stop though as she pulled Harry down two narrow alleys and away from the Goblin. The cackling followed them though and Piper swore under her breath. Where the hell was the team? 

She got her answer as she pulled Harry to the ground out of the way of what turned out to be some kind of containment blast. It turned into a large green sparking bubble as they pulled themselves to their feet and kept fleeing. Nova swooped out of the cloud cover and blasted at the Goblin who roared. Power man pulled up next to them and motioned them past him. 

“Run kids, we got this.” Nova cried out as another green bubble bounced to the ground this one with the teen hero inside. Piper wanted to help but she couldn’t go through with it now. She would find a better less life threatening time to tell Harry the truth. Instead she pulled him across the street and down another alley and away from the fight raging behind them. She heard each of her friends fall as she swore. She had turned down the wrong alley, there was a massive chain link fence. She glanced at Harry. He was looking over his shoulder, scared. She quietly leapt up the fence and pulled down the ladder for the fire escape. It would get them over the fence and onto the trucks just outside it. 

“Come on!” Harry followed her lead and they made it over the trucks and down to the other side of the alley. Piper glanced over her shoulder and saw that the Goblin wasn’t following them anymore. For one fleeting second she hoped that maybe just maybe they had gotten away. Then the cackling sounded in front of them and Harry stepped in front of her. His hand was shaking slightly but he looked determined as the Goblin landed in front of them, filling the alley way. 

“Leave her out of this Dad. It’s me you want.” Piper grabbed Harry’s arm to try and hold him back but he shook her off and stepped forwards to meet the Goblin. The Goblin grinned at Harry’s word. 

“Oh hardly Harry.” Piper felt all the blood drain from her face as the Goblin easily knocked Harry aside and kept coming. She turned to run but her Spidey sense went crazy and she screamed as a blast of electricity struck her in the back. A large metal hand wrapped around her torso and she kicked and struggled. The Goblin squeezed is hand around her and she screamed as more electricity pulsed through her. The last thing she saw was Harry’s horrified face shrinking into the distance.


	18. Cross Contamination

Luke and Venom managed to rip the bubbles open but by the time they did the Goblin was long gone with his captive. Harry was still standing stunned looking into the sky. Iron Fist stepped up to him and gently rested a hand on his shoulder. He jumped, a haunted look in his eyes as he looked around at them. 

“Are you alright Mr. Osborn?” Harry shook his head. 

“No! He took Piper! What are you all still doing here!? You have to go after her!” Danny steadied him as he glared at them. Ava took charge. 

“Venom, Nova, see if you can’t pick up the trail.” She tossed Venom her watch, he caught it looking a bit starstruck. “Tap it twice to call us.” He nodded and quickly put on the watch before swinging in one direction. Nova took off at top speed in another direction. 

“Iron Fist, you and Power Man get Mr. Osborn back to his pent house. He should be safe there.” Luke raised an eyebrow at her. 

“What are you going to do?” Ava pulled a beeper out of her belt. 

“I’m going to make a call.” 

 

To be fair to Ava, she had been expecting Tony to answer, not Natasha. But the assassin was the one who answered her call. Thus the whole Avengers team was waiting outside the Osborn penthouse. Harry let them in his hands shaking. Tony was so furious he couldn’t even step out of the armor because he was reasonably certain he was going to punch a child if he did. So instead of handling Harry he took Iron Fist out onto the balcony. 

“Tell me everything about the Goblin now!” Danny nodded and began at the beginning of what he knew. He hadn’t been there for the end of the fight as the Helicarier was going down, or their first fight at Oscorp but he told Tony everything. Clint was also on the Balcony with them when Nova landed shaking his head. 

“He disappeared.” Ava swore. Tony was shaking. 

“Why would he go after Piper? Or did Osborn just shove her in front of him.” A voice cut Tony off. 

“If you weren’t in that armor I would slap you.” It was Natasha. She was standing in the doorway to the balcony. She stepped forwards looking menacingly at Tony. He glanced over her shoulder and spotted Harry breaking down on Captain America’s shoulder. He felt bad but he didn’t have time for that right now. 

“What did he say?” Natasha shook her head. 

“The Goblin was definitely after Piper not him. Shoved him aside to get to her.” Tony felt the tension rise.

“Is there any chance she escaped and is just being stubborn and fighting him on her own.” Luke shook his head and held up Piper’s backpack, careful to flip it open to the secret compartment out of Harry’s view, he doubted she’d had time to tell him like she’d wanted. 

“Not unless she’s doing it without this.” Tony’s heart dropped. It wasn’t something Piper would do. He couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his stomach. This whole situation stank. 

 

 

Piper’s world took a bit to resolve into something that made any sense at all. Everything was dimly lit and awash in green. She blinked and tried to lift her arms, only to find them shackled to the cold metal table she lay on. She tried to struggle and heard a familiar chuckle. She froze as she remembered what had been happened. She blinked again and the Goblin stepped out of the shadows a grin full of fangs on display. She didn’t even try to hide how scared she was. 

“So good to see you awake. It’s been too long Miss Parker! Of course you wouldn’t recognize me, I have had something of a genetic makeover since we last saw each other!” He cackled and Piper let out an internal sigh. He didn’t know she knew which meant he didn’t know she was Spidergirl but that brought up the very uncomfortable question of why she was here at all. He kept talking. “You used to call me Mr. Osborn but you can call me what they all call me now, Goblin. It’s quite the accurate name don’t you think.” 

“What the actual fuck! Norman Osborn! What happened to you?” He cackled again. She really didn’t need an answer to that. She had been there. But he didn’t know that. But she also couldn’t reach her watch. Maybe she could reactivate her com in her ear. She just needed an opportunity in the conversation to say the names of one of her team members, or her own moniker without suspicion. 

“I evolved. I was gifted strength and speed by the blood of the late Spidergirl. My child I have never felt better.” She blinked at him as she pulled at her restraints. She stopped cold when she processed what he’d said. 

“Did you just say ‘my child’?” The goblin nodded as he stepped over to a table strewn in papers and what looked like stolen tech. He picked up an injector and smiled wider. 

“The child I should have had. Smart, driven, innovative. So much better than Harry, though you could be the best thing that he ever did, his biggest success if he had been able to pluck up the courage to make a move. In every way the child I should have.” She stared at him as he advanced.

“If Harry won’t do anything because he thinks you’re happier with someone else I will bring you into the family myself.” Piper gasped as the needle of the injector gun was shoved into her thigh. She struggled harder. 

“What did you do to me!” The Goblin laughed. 

“I gave you the gift of evolution. But not with Spidergirl’s blood this time, not really. I used the last of the Venom symbiote and samples of my own blood to make something much more interesting. Should help you grow big and strong.” He laughed as a burning took over in Piper’s veins and she began to scream. She didn’t hear the scream slip into a hissing screech, she was already falling into darkness.


	19. Something New

The Goblin watched with bated breath as tendrils of black and red began to spread from the injection site and out over Piper as she screamed. As it covered her face her eyes flickered closed and the scream turned into a screech. The figure on the table writhed a few more times the screeches changing pitch and tone as they continued then the figure fell still. A few minutes passed and for a moment the Goblin thought that maybe he’d given her too much of it. If the symbiote had killed her he’d have to settle for Harry, and he wasn’t sure he was willing to do that. But then the tendrils began to retreat. But the figure under them wasn’t quite the same. 

Where there had been a pale blue t shirt and Hawkeye jacket there was now red and black. Her hair was a shade or two darker too. When the Goblin ran a finger through it he found strands of the symbiote there between the brown. This was more than he could have asked for. A symbiote that could control while still letting the host appear human. He cackled as the symbiote stained Piper’s jeans black. Then her eyes flickered open. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment. Then she sat up the metal around her straining and breaking. Her eyes were bright blood red, deep dark circles under them. She blinked a few times like she was trying to get used to sight. As if it was something she never had before. She looked down and examined her fingernails. Her eyes narrowed and the nails turned black swirled with red and lengthened, sharpening to points. She smiled, her teeth had remained the same. The Goblin laughed loudly. 

“Oh this is better than I could ever have hoped!” The creature that had been Piper Parker turned to him as if she hadn’t known she was there. She blinked at him silently. For any normal person it would have been unsettling, bright red eyes staring at them blinking much less than a normal human should need to, but he was ecstatic. He laughed as she turned to him, bending much like the late Spidergirl until she was perched on the edge of the table. She stared at him for another moment and he noticed that the black and red was spreading over her skin from her newly stained clothes. In a few short seconds she was covered head to foot in black and red. Several tendrils hung loose at her back and the eyes were very similar to Venom’s. He grinned as the slime covering Piper’s face ripped itself apart revealing teeth like needles. He was less pleased however when it shrieked at him and lunged forwards, claws out to tear into him. 

“Obey symbiote!” He shouted and grabbed it by its torso and it shrieked as he threw it. It caught hold of the wall and tore into it sending monitors flying. It whirled on him and shrunk back slightly. The symbiote shrunk back and Piper’s face reappeared still with those slightly unnerving red eyes. The creature stared at him as he smiled and laughed. 

“Look at the carnage you’ve wrought! Carnage… I like it!” The creature, Carnage stared at him for a moment. 

“Carnage.” It spoke, its voice wasn’t quite Piper’s, too raspy, too slow. It was almost like it didn’t quite know what words were yet. Any trace of Piper had been either eradicated or pushed down so deep the symbiote couldn’t reach it. That might be a bit of a problem, he’d wanted her intelligence more than anything else. He frowned slightly but before he could become angry at his failure Carnage pulled itself out of the dust that it had created tearing monitors apart. It looked down examining Piper’s limbs with genuine interest. 

“I am Carnage?” Full sentences were a good start. It turned and examined itself in a dark screen running hands through Piper’s hair and over her face. “I wasn’t Carnage. Not always. But now I am, I don’t know who this was before now.” The creature gestured at Piper’s face reflected in the monitor. 

“She’s gone?” That was almost disappointing.

“No. Not gone.” The red eyes were fixed on their reflection like they could see something that the Goblin couldn’t. “Hiding, hidden.” The Goblin frowned at that but there were other things for him to worry about.

 

 

Piper was sitting alone in a room. It was black, floors walls and ceiling. There were no windows. No lights. But she could see, at least she thought she could. She should be afraid but she wasn’t. She barely felt anything. She’d never felt this detached from herself. She’d almost felt this way when Venom took her over but that couldn’t be, or could it? She somehow couldn’t bring herself to care. She sat in the dark for what felt like years before something changed. A silver web was growing in the corner of the room. It started off so small Piper wouldn’t have seen it but for the featurelessness of the rest of the room. The web grew steadily as she watched. It took her a while to spot the spider that was building it. It was unfamiliar. A fat little arachnid with long skinny legs that by rights shouldn’t have been able to hold it up. It was brightly colored. A red much like the red of her costume but a but more orange than she’d ever worn. The legs were yellow, bright like sunshine. 

She watched as it continued to weave its web, somehow content to just watch nothing more. She wasn’t afraid of spiders even if she was alone with one she knew nothing about. It was as she watched that she realized how the spider had gotten into the room. There had been a crack in the wall behind the web. But it had been filled in with the silver webbing. Piper went to reach forward, to touch it, and a voice she’d never heard before echoed around her.

“Don’t!” Piper stopped looking around for the source of the voice as the spider kept on spinning, the web growing bigger, closer to where Piper sat in the middle of the black room. There was no one else there though. She reached forwards again towards the crack. She would have to go through the web to get to it. The spider stopped its spinning, it skittered in front of her and hissed. She blinked staring straight at the face of the spider. It took her a moment to realize what was happening. The spider didn’t have enough eyes. Where there should be eight there were only the largest two. And they were not the shining black spider eyes should be. They had a ring of green around the black, bright sparkling green that no spider could have. They were the eyes of a human. The mandibles didn’t move but the voice echoed again as the spider stared at her warningly. 

“I can’t help you until the web is complete. If you break it the symbiote gets in. I cant help you if you break the web. Please, sit still.” Piper fell back and sat still staring at the spider. It stared back at her, human eyes examining in a way no true spiders could. Once it was sure she wasn’t moving anymore it went back to spinning. Piper watched it go. It was the only thing in her world and she was fascinated by it. Not a passing interest like she had in what it was outside this room but a fascination bordering on obsession. This was something new. The web kept growing.


	20. Not Quite The Same

Tony had calmed down a bit and was now scanning the city for the minor radioactive signature Piper put out. She and Bruce had figured out long ago that it wasn’t dangerous to anyone around her unless they decided they were going to drink her blood. That would likely cause them some problems. But for the moment they had ruled out the possibility. Hellen Cho had taken her aside and talked to her about the possibility of her having children. They’d done some tests, she could if she chose but it was so far off her radar right now she wasn’t even thinking about it. He frowned. He was only picking up partial matches. Three of them. He frowned again. One of them was here, clearly Venom. Another was stationary, but it was too far off, this one was too radioactive. The final one was… heading their way? He frowned adjusting his radar, that couldn’t be right. 

 

A few minutes later there was a rap on the door. Harry frowned and stepped to the screen on the wall. He tapped it and his eyes went wide. He stared for a minute.

“Piper?” Harry sounded like he was barely breathing. Tony whirled and raced over to Harry looking over his shoulder. He frowned slightly. It did appear to be Piper, but she was wearing mostly black, a red top he’d never seen before and a red baseball cap. He couldn’t see her eyes. Natasha frowned as she looked over Harry’s shoulder. Nova was heading for the door as the assassin shook her head. 

“Something’s not right.” But it was too late Nova was already opening the door. As he did Piper looked up and all three of the people at the screen balked slightly. Her eyes were bright blood red where there should have been blue. Nova was flung backwards with a force that cracked the wall he slammed into.

“You know I didn’t think it would be that easy. Just ringing the doorbell. I really didn’t think that would work.” Her voice was rough and raspy, nothing like it had been. Natasha stepped in front of Harry as whoever this was turned their way, wicked smile growing slightly. 

“You’re all so trusting.” 

“What are you?” Natasha’s question was sharp, shaking Tony out of his reverie. That wasn’t his daughter, it looked like his daughter but it wasn’t. Harry hadn’t seemed to have grasped that. 

“Piper.” The creature shook its head. 

“Not quite. She’s still in here somewhere but she’s not coming back anytime soon.” The creature tapped the side of Piper’s head. “You can call me Carnage. Though you won’t be calling anyone anything for long.” The grin on the creature morphed as the red and black spread until Piper was covered in it from head to toe. She screeched, needlelike teeth ripping apart the goo around it. Every hero in the room dropped into a fighting stance. 

 

 

Piper watched the spider work its way around the room. The webbing was sparkling and shimmering. Every now and then she spotted an image moving around in the holes of the web. The spider moved ever closer to her, she watched it intently. Finally the webbing covered the room and the spider wove the web onto her hand. A shock passed through her and suddenly she wasn’t in the room anymore. She was sitting in a web, identical to the one the spider had woven in the room, but now she was surrounded by other webs, many of them connected and some formed balls of webbing that looked like globes. She blinked. She felt more connected to herself and panic set in as she remembered what the spider had said about a symbiote. There had been a spider with human eyes! She felt herself tremble. 

“It’s alright little spider.” She whirled. She probably should have fallen through the web but she didn’t. Instead she came face to face with a woman. She was tall, or she would be if she wasn’t sitting down. She was dressed in red and black, her hair a bright yellow tied up elegantly with a web. Her eyes were the same bright green as the spider’s. Piper blinked at her. 

“Who are you?” The woman smiled and helped Piper into a more comfortable sitting position. 

“You can call me Madame Web. And I brought you here to talk to you, I’ve been trying to contact you for a long time now.” Piper stared at her.

 

Only Danny noticed the change. Of course only he would, he was the only one present who had any sense of the otherworldly. He felt a shock pass through the room and saw a flash of silver around Piper’s head, he was the only one who spotted the silver webline that was running off into thin air from the back of her neck. Piper’s aura had always been shot through with thin lines of silver, like a spiders’ web, but this was different. Her aura was gone, but for the anchor of silver thread. But if he kept focusing on that he was going to get shredded. He dove out of the way as the thing that had been Piper leapt through the air towards him. Carnage hissed out a laugh.

“This is a lot more fun than he said it would be.” Tony blasted at one of the tendrils that smacked out at him. 

“You talked to the Goblin!” Carnage stood on the wall and smiled at the Avengers and Spidergirl’s team none of whom had any idea what they were supposed to do. In the confusion Harry slipped off, he knew a symbiote when he saw one and he had an idea. 

“The Goblin made me. He’s a fool but I think he does good work don’t you?” She shot forwards again and slashed this time at Venom but he seemed unaffected. He grappled with the thing and the harsh raspy laugh cut through the air again.

“Oh now this is fun!” They wrestled across the room. The fight was nearly impossible to follow. To everyone in the room it was a mess of screeching and hissing, black and red flowing and slashing at each other. 

 

 

“Trying to talk to me? I don’t understand, where am I?” The woman smiled at Piper, her eyes shimmering green just like the spider she’d seen before. 

“We are in the Web, the Web of Life and Destiny. But we don’t have time to explain everything. You have quite the role to play in the years to come.” Piper shook her head at the woman in front of her. 

“I don’t… I don’t understand. Web of Life and Destiny? You’re not making any sense. Am… Am I dead?” The woman, Madame Web laughed. 

“No sweet Spider, you are far from dead. I have simply removed your mind from your body temporarily. I will help you retake it from the symbiote. But first I must speak to you.” Piper nodded still stunned. There was something about this woman that screamed divinity. She almost couldn’t help but listen to her. The woman smiled and cupped Piper’s face, the way she barely remembered her mother doing. 

“Sweet Spider. You will be tested, your resolution, your resourcefulness, your intelligence, and your willingness to change. Sooner than I thought. You must endure these tests. I have no doubt you can. Seek out other Spiders, you will know what I mean when the time comes.” She said forestalling Piper’s question. “Seek them out, help to band them together, you will all need each other when the time comes.” Piper blinked at her a million questions racing through her mind. Before she could speak though Madame Web gently laid a finger over her mouth. 

“I know you have questions but we have no time for me to answer them. I have spoken to one of those closest to you, though he does not know that is what happened. He will do his best to prepare you for anything you might face but you must prepare on your own as well. Train hard Sweet Spider, for this danger is one you must face alone.” Piper’s mind was reeling, it was too much information. The spider that had been in the blank black room skittered across the web from the nearest globe of webbing. Madame Web raised it to her ear and it seemed to whisper to her. 

“We must get you back to your body before it is too late. I will help you break the symbiote’s control but beyond that I can do no more. You have developed a unique skill for defending against telepaths. Sadly that put you out of my reach until Carnage took control. Your defenses were too busy with it to bother with me. But I doubt that will be the case soon. It is time for us to part Sweet Spider. I will see you again someday.” She leaned forwards and pressed a gentle, motherly kiss to the top of Pipers head. Piper felt herself shooting backwards at what could only be terminal velocity, none of her burning questions answered.


	21. Taking It Back

This time when Piper opened her eyes it was a bit more like what she’d experienced when Venom had taken her over, but the silvery webs the spider had spun in the pitch black room were still there, wrapped around her hand and woven through the tendrils of the black and red symbiote. Carnage was fighting Venom. She was aware of others in the room, it was like her spidey sense had been dialed up from five to eleven. If that was the symbiote or the odd experience she’d just been through she didn’t know as her body, still out of her control, rolled away from Venom. A rasping laugh came from her throat. 

“You can’t hurt me without hurting her, you all know that.” Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Harry in the hallway, the symbiote had spotted him too. It hissed in triumph and lunged at him. Piper cried out and on instinct pulled back the hand the silver webbing was wrapped around tight. The spiked arm of the symbiote stopped inches from Harry’s face. 

“I won’t let you hurt him, any of them!” She spit it through gritted teeth and yanked hard on the silver webbing again, slicing through some of the tendrils. The symbiote screamed as if in pain but that didn’t stop her tearing through it more with what had been given to her by Madame Web’s spider.

 

Harry blinked as the symbiote stopped its attack inches from taking out his eye. Then Piper’s voice spilled from its lips. 

“I won’t let you hurt him, any of them!” The symbiote screamed and stumbled backwards shifting and bubbling slightly. Harry whipped around the corner full and leveled the weapon in his hands at the thing that had taken over his best friend, the love of his life. 

“Sorry Piper.” He pulled the trigger as Tony lunged forward but before he could reach the teens a wall of sound blasted out of the gun and slammed into the symbiote which screamed. 

 

Piper wasn’t sure what was going on but the symbiote was losing this fight. Between the webs cutting through it like garrote wire and the blast of sound from Harry’s weapon it couldn’t hold onto her. One moment she was covered in the stuff the next second it was peeling away from her like its life depended on it. She dropped to the ground fully alone in her own mind again as a wall of blackness slammed back up in her mind, she wasn’t sure if it was unconsciousness or not until someone’s arms wrapped around her and a hand gently caressed her cheek. Her eyes were closed, it took her a minute to get her brain back in order enough to remember how to open them. It was a jarring feeling trying to remember how everything worked after being out of her head for what felt like hours. She managed it after a few minutes and had to blink a few times before the face of a very concerned Harry Osborn came into view. 

Her head hurt and everything felt a little out of place, like she was settling back into her body but seeing Harry above her with tears in his eyes shook her t her core. She leaned into his hand slightly and smiled up at him.

“Hey Harry.” She sounded slurred almost like she was drunk. Not that she had ever been drunk, she’d tried once after she’d been bitten by the spider, strictly for science of course but nothing had happened. She’d told her father that Thor had been through his liquor shelves after that night. Harry smiled at her and she grinned back at him. She wasn’t sure which of them leaned in first but suddenly his lips were on hers. It was a soft press of lips, not a desperate messy thing. If she had been in control of her limbs she would have wrapped her arms around his neck but they moved like wet spaghetti when she tried. Her eyes slipped closed for a moment before someone cleared their throat sharply and they sprang apart. 

Tony was staring at them, half exasperated, half relieved. There was a frozen glob of goo in a small containment unit in one of his hands. Piper blinked at him for a minute. 

“Hi dad…” She was pretty sure she’d turned the color of a tomato as she noticed that not only was her team here but the rest of the Avengers too. Steve stepped forwards putting his shield on his back and helped Harry pull her to her feet. She stumbled slightly and Harry steadied her.

“You ok?” He was looking at her like she was the only thing that mattered in the world and her heart did flip flops as she nodded. Reluctantly Harry handed her over to Steve, who scooped her up off her feet like she weighed nothing at all. She blinked at Harry, face still bright red. Harry wasn’t faring much better. Tony stepped between them.

“We need to get her back to Stark Tower, make sure she’s medically clear.” His tone brooked no arguments, so Harry nodded. Piper still hadn’t quite gotten control on her words completely so she kept silent as Steve carried her out of the Osborn penthouse, her team and the rest of the Avengers following her. Iron Man lingered though.

“If you break her heart I won’t be the only one coming after you, you understand that right?” Harry nodded his fingers absently brushing over his lips.

“If I break her heart I deserve everything I get.” Tony blinked at that before he followed the others out of the penthouse. 

 

It didn’t take long to pronounce Piper clear of the symbiote but Dr. Cho wanted to keep her overnight for observation and Bruce agreed. So as her team got cleaned up and Tony searched for the Goblin Piper sat alone in the med bay. She frowned to herself running over the events of the day. 

“Hey JARVIS?” 

“Yes Miss Parker?”

“Can you ask Danny to come up here when he gets the chance?”

“Absolutely Miss Parker.” There was a brief pause. “Mr. Rand is on his way now.”

“Thanks J.”

“You are quite welcome.”


	22. Discussion

Danny arrived in the med bay a few minutes later, his hair still damp from a shower. He raised an eyebrow at Piper who was sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“Didn’t Dr. Cho tell you to stay laying down?” Piper stuck out her tongue at him before laying back down and frowning at the ceiling. Danny sat down in one of the chairs next to the bed. They were silent for a moment before Piper spoke. 

“Do you know anything about out of body experiences?” Danny leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees. 

“I know you had one.” Piper turned to him, shocked. He nodded. “Your aura disappeared while Carnage was in control of your body all except for a silver string. Like a web.” Piper stared at him. 

“Ok so at least I’m not crazy.”

“No, you’re not, but Spider what happened.” Danny asked looking her over, clearly concerned. 

“To be honest I’m not entirely sure. I mean I remember what happened, but I don’t know that I can explain it. I don’t know that I have the words.” Danny nodded leaning back in his chair. 

“I have time.” Piper nodded to him slightly, her eyes wandering back to the ceiling. Then she spoke describing the black room and the silver webbing the red and yellow spider spinning it. Then she paused and took a deep breath before describing ending up in an impossible place, with an impossible woman. 

“She called it the Web of Life and Destiny. It was… You know multiverse theory right?” Danny nodded at her.

“The fact that there are an infinite amount of universes where there can be any number of changes from our own.” Piper nodded then froze looking back at Danny. 

“Fact?” Danny nodded at her inquiry. 

“Fact. The multiverse exists. You and Dr. Strange need to talk more. What else did she tell you?” 

“She told me I would be tested. That I needed to seek out other spiders. That I would know what that meant when the time came. That we would all need each other when the time came. She also said she’d been in contact with ‘one of those closest to you’ and that he would do his best to prepare me but when the time came, I would face the danger alone.” Danny frowned. 

“The time for what?” Piper shook her head at him.

“She didn’t say. She’d been trying to get in contact with me for a while but she couldn’t because of my mental barrier. The one that attacked Wong when he was in my head?” Danny nodded he remembered that well. “Apparently that was keeping her out too but it was too busy with Carnage to try and block her. She helped me stop the thing. I don’t think I could have managed it without her, it was like the webs were cutting off its control of me enough that Harry’s weapon worked to strip it away completely.” Danny nodded leaning forwards slightly. 

“I can’t pretend to know much about what you experienced but I can talk to Dr. Strange. He’ll know more than I do. I can call him, see when he’s available, I know he’ll make time for this.” Piper nodded and a rap came at the door. Danny stood and nodded as he stepped past Tony who was holding a tray of food in on hand and a Stark Pad in the other. Tony smiled slightly at Piper as he set down the tray on the bedside table. He sat down on the edge of her bed. 

“How are you feeling?” Piper shrugged slightly.

“Alright I guess. Nobody got hurt right?” Tony nodded at her. 

“Nobody got hurt. Venom seemed a bit shaken up after all the noise but he left pretty quick so…” Piper nodded, making a mental note to check on Flash tomorrow at school. Tony frowned. “You don’t seem as shaken up as Natasha tells me you were after Venom.” Piper ran a hand through her hair. 

“It wasn’t quite the same. With Venom I could see and feel everything that was happening but I couldn’t do anything about it. But this time… It wasn’t the same.” Tony nodded, the look on his daughters face told him he wouldn’t be getting anything else out of her for a while, even she didn’t seem to fully understand what had happened. 

“On another note, between you ‘dying’ and then getting kidnapped I didn’t have a chance to tell you I have something for you.” Tony held up the Stark Pad and tapped it. A projection leapt forth, it was red shot through with blue. “I don’t know what to call her yet, but she’s all yours. Separate from JARVIS, I’ve got her worked into the bikes and most of the rest of your equipment. She just needs a name.” Piper stared at her father. 

“My own AI?” Tony nodded. 

“Yes. Feel free to make any tweaks you want, she’s yours. Fully automated.” He held the Stark Pad over Piper’s watch. “One tap and she’s all set. She just needs a name.” Piper grinned. 

“Karen.” Tony snorted. 

“Why Karen?” Piper shrugged.

“I don’t know, just sounds right.” Tony shrugged and tapped the pad to Pipers watch the code glowed then vanished. Piper tapped her watch. 

“You online?” It took a second but a female voice spoke. 

“Affirmative, I am online.” Piper grinned. 

 

Danny shook his head at the phone in his hand. He was on speaker in his room, alone. 

“I’m not sure I understand what happened to her. All I know is one moment her aura was there, the next it was just a thread. She needs to talk to you, someone who understands cosmic beings more than I do.” The phone was silent for a moment. 

“Send her over here tomorrow if she’s feeling well enough. We’ll talk, but you know she needs to have this talk alone.” Danny nodded to himself. 

“I know. I’ll tell her how to open the door. Thank you Dr.” Dr. Strange nodded to himself as he rung off and sighed to himself.


	23. Context

The Avengers saw them off to school the next day on the family floor. They were all in uniform and Piper raised an eyebrow. 

“What’s up?” Tony hugged Piper. 

“Got a hit off the info you stole when Hydra kidnapped you and Harry. A base in France, we think they might have a lead for Loki’s scepter, so we’re going after it.” Piper nodded and hugged her father back. 

“Be safe, all of you.” They all nodded and headed to the jet. Happy dropped the teens off at school and Piper spotted Harry immediately. She blushed deep red. She hadn’t had time between working on Karen and figuring out what had happened when she’d been out of her own head that she hadn’t had to think about the kiss they’d shared. Harry smiled softly at her and waved. Before she could step over to him though, talk about what happened, what the implications might be someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and came face to face with Flash Thompson. 

“Can we talk?” Piper blinked at him then nodded. 

 

Flash Thompson was not a genius. He made decent grades in school but he relied more on his physical attributes than his brain. But that wasn’t to say he was a complete idiot. It was the watch that ended up giving them away. White Tiger had never even asked for it back. When he’d gotten back to Kobe’s place after the fight with Carnage, after Harry rescued Piper from the symbiote, he’d taken another look at it and realized he’d seen it before. In several different colors. Ava Ayala wore the white one that was now in his hands. Sam Alexander wore a blue one, Danny Rand’s was green. Luke Cage had a yellow one, and Piper Parker wore a red one. 

White Tiger had given him her white one. Nova wore a blue one, Iron Fist’s was green. Power Man had a yellow one. And the kicker was Spidergirl’s. The one White Tiger had given him was stained black now with the symbiote, but Spidey’s… Spidey’s watch was red. Just like the one now on Piper Parker’s wrist. They stopped behind the school, in the alley where Kobe had tossed Alex into the trash just a few weeks ago. Flash paused. Piper raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure how he wanted to phrase what he had to say. Apparently Venom had an idea though as it shifted and pulled back to his shoulder. It sat there, white eyes staring at Piper who had frozen, stock still. 

“Sspider.” Piper glared at it.

“Thought you weren’t in the business of outing secret identities.” Flash put a hand in front of Venom before it could speak again.

“He didn’t. I figured it out.” Piper raised an eyebrow, focusing on Flash. He could see it now. Her stance had shifted from her usual relaxed self to something much more on guard. It was the same way Spidergirl had held herself when they’d talked face to mask in the warehouse. 

“How?” Flash held up the arm that now had White Tiger, Ava’s, watch on it. 

“White Tiger gave me her watch when you got taken yesterday so we could keep in contact. I recognized it. You guys all wear one, just different colors.” Piper glanced down at her watch and smiled slightly. 

“Our watches gave us away?” Flash nodded slightly. 

“To be fair I am kind of a giant fan boy, I don’t think anyone else looks that closely.” Piper let out a slight laugh. Then she shook her head. 

“What are you gonna do, now that you know?” Flash paused he hadn’t even thought about it. Piper seemed most worried about that though. He shook his head. 

“How about I start by apologizing?” Piper stared at him. “God all those times Spidergirl saved everyone I know. Saved me, saved Liz. And we were just horrible to you. All of us. You could have stood up for yourself. You could have taken me down without a thought. Why didn’t you?” Piper stared at him for a moment. 

“Because it was never about me. Or you. Or Kobe, or Liz. It was about what was right. It is about what’s right, doing what’s right, no matter what it means for you.” Venom wiggled slightly, setting what could possibly be called its chin on Flash’s hand. 

“Our Sspider iss clever, and kind.” Piper’s eyes turned back to Venom.

“I’m not your spider, not anymore.” Venom nodded slightly. Now that Flash knew the truth Venom wasn’t holding anything back. It showed him now what it really was, every screaming insecurity that had ever passed through Piper’s mind. Every cry of ‘Menace’ or ‘Freak’ from Jamison. Every time someone said that she wasn’t good enough. Venom had started as that, it was no wonder it had gone rouge, knowing nothing but fear, rage and hate. But it was more than that now, they were more than that. 

“No, but we will alwassy be part of you, and you part of uss. We have uss now.” It nudged Flash who grinned. 

“I hope you two work out.” She turned to head off as the bell rang. 

“Wait, what about… I mean am I… are we still on the team?” Piper grinned slightly. 

“Show up at Stark Tower tonight, Karen will let you in. We’ll talk then.” Flash grinned after Piper as she slipped into the school building through one of the side doors. 

 

Harry didn’t get a chance to talk to Piper until lunch. She kept getting pulled aside by Flash, which was weird. What was weirder was that Flash and Liz had officially ended it. It had been coming for a while, at least according to the rumor mill. But today it had finally ended in a loud shouting match during study hall. According to witnesses the biggest point of contention had been Spidergirl. But Harry didn’t really care. He had bigger things to worry about. So when Piper pulled him aside he was nervous. She didn’t look much better though as she ran her hands through her hair.

“We should probably talk huh?” Harry nodded. 

“How are you feeling?” Piper shrugged. 

“Good. I mean it was freaky but I’m ok.” Harry smiled taking her hands. 

“Good, that… That’s good.” She smiled at him again. He cupped her cheek and she smiled. It felt so natural, she leaned into his hand. He smiled at her and it seemed as if the world around them melted away, until it was just the two of them. He leaned forwards and she met him halfway. At first it was just like it had been the day before, just a soft touch, but it quickly changed. Piper’s tongue quested out and in moments there was a hunger in the kiss that hadn’t been there before. When they parted they were panting. Piper stared at him and he grinned slightly. 

“Harry I…”

“I’m in love with you.” Harry would have hit himself if Piper wasn’t still in his arms. She blinked at him. “I mean I’ve had a crush on you for a really long time but it… it’s not the same anymore. I think about you all the time. I know I don’t deserve you, you’re so amazing. You deserve a hero, someone who can keep you safe. I…” This time it was Piper who cut him off with her lips to his. The kiss kept going for what felt like forever. 

“I don’t want a hero Harry, I can keep myself safe. I want you.” Harry grinned and a throat cleared behind them. They jumped apart both going very red at the sight of Mary Jane Watson standing there. 

“Finally my days of third wheeling are coming to a middle.” They all laughed at that and for one blessed moment everything was right with the world. Piper knew she should tell Harry, tell him that she knew about his dad, that she was Spidergirl. But at that moment as his hand slid into hers she couldn’t bring herself to break the perfect feeling in the air, as the three of them laughed.


	24. Within The Web

Of course the peace couldn’t last. Instead of staying with Harry after the final bell for the day rang she hopped into the back of the unmarked Audi and pulled on a dark hoodie, shooting an address to Happy who raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t comment. He dropped her off with a few odd looks at the warehouse but she knew what he didn’t. She pulled out her phone and took a look at the symbol Danny had been so kind to draw for her. It was the one he’d draw a while ago to get into the sanctum. She looked around and sighed, stepping up to the warehouse and carefully drawing the symbol into the dust. It took a second but the warehouse melted away, revealing the townhouse instead. She rolled her eyes and stepped up to the door. Danny had told her that she should just go in when she arrived but she hesitated for a second then gently pulled the door open, slipping inside. 

She was still wrapping her head around the whole magic was real thing. It hadn’t gotten any easier after her defeat of the demon Nightmare but she needed answers about what exactly had happened to her while Carnage had been inhabiting her body. So she stepped past the pedestals and paused in the entryway. 

“You’re late.” It was Wong. Piper got the feeling he didn’t like her much. She couldn’t really blame him though. She had mentally attacked him on accident and that couldn’t have been a pleasant experience. 

“Well some of us are still in school.” Wong nodded slightly and led her into a small parlor where there was already a tea tray set up. It was cozy and he told her to make herself at home. She set down her bag and poured herself a cup of tea, adding honey and a splash of milk. She sat down and waited. It wasn’t a long wait which was nice. Dr. Strange appearing out of nowhere in the chair opposite her was less nice. She jumped and barely saved herself from a lap full of still hot tea. 

“Do you have to do that? It’s kind of obnoxious.” Dr. Strange didn’t answer her. Instead he frowned and leaned forwards slightly.

“Something about you is different.” He stated it like he was stating that the final piece of a thousand piece puzzle was missing. She frowned at him and set her tea cup back on the saucer. 

“That’s why I’m here. Or at least I think we’re talking about the same thing.” She began to tell him everything that had happened to her. When she reached the part about the woman on the web he held up a hand to silence her then waved his other one in an intricate movement, light chasing his fingers. She blinked as the light passed over her and she lit up like a Christmas tree. The lights around her were a mix of blue and red, though there seemed to be more red than there was blue. Like her costume the lights were shot through with what looked like webbing, but this webbing wasn’t black. It was silver and quite familiar. She reached out, fascinated and touched one of the threads and suddenly she wasn’t seeing Dr. Strange. She was back in that black void filled with webs, planets made of webs, stars trapped there like flies. It flashed before her eyes in a second then it was gone in favor of what looked like a war torn New York. An impromptu stage was set up, a hodgepodge of lights pointed to the figure on the stage. A male figure dressed in a spidey suit. It wasn’t quite like hers. This one had spikes set into the top of the mask, mimicking a mohawk, and had a torn jean vest plastered with different pins and badges. They all seemed to follow the same bent as the music that was wailing out of the electric guitar the Spider-man was playing. Something about over throwing the fascist regime of Norman Osborn. The music swelled and grew so loud that Piper’s hands flew to her ears and the scene around her began to dissolve. Just before it vanished entirely her eyes met the mask of the Spider-man and it was like her spider sense had been dialed up to twenty. Colors around her shifted and blared for a moment before the Spider-man dissolved completely. But in her last brief glimpse of him she could tell he’d felt it too if the widening of the whites of his mask had been any indication anyway.

Then it was over and she was back sitting in front of Dr. Strange who looked almost concerned. She blinked a few times and realized the lights around her had gone out. She blinked again and shook her head. Dr. Strange waited a moment before handing her back her mug of tea and sitting back in her chair contemplating her. 

“What did you see?” She shook her head. 

“I… It was New York but not… Not this New York…” It took her some time to explain exactly what she’d seen. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, especially the vibe she’d gotten off the other Spider. She couldn’t describe that save for one sentence. “He was like me.” That was all she could think to say. Dr. Strange nodded pouring himself some tea and taking a sip before he spoke.

“Most people who see into other worlds have difficulty describing what exactly they saw and felt.” She blinked at him.

“Other worlds, yeah Danny mentioned something to that effect.” He nodded. 

“I’m sure you’re familiar with multiverse theory. Well I say theory. It’s not really a theory if it’s a provable fact is it. You yourself have experienced it, twice now.” She blinked at his candidness. 

“So you’re saying I didn’t have an out of body experience, I had an out of universe experience.” He nodded at her taking another sip of his tea. Hers was forgotten in her hands. 

“From what you’ve described that is exactly right. The woman in the web, what did she call herself?”

“Madame Web.” 

“She is likely one of two things. She is either some kind of divine entity in her own right, or she is someone who speaks as a representative of a divine being that has taken an active interest in you.” Piper stared at him then threw her arms up, forgetting the tea cup. She caught it and the tea within without even blinking, not even spilling a drop. It had barely registered as a blip on her spider sense. She blinked and set down the cup. She hadn’t had a reaction to something as small as that before. She frowned and turned back to Dr. Strange.

“I’m not sure I want to be on the radar of a divine being.” Dr. Strange shrugged. 

“You don’t really have a choice Spidergirl. For whatever reason this entity sought you out and gave you a task.” 

“Train hard, be ready for what’s coming, when the time comes find other spiders. Whatever that means.” Dr. Strange nodded. 

“If she said you would know it when the time came, then know it you will. Only then and not before.” Piper let out a large sigh and slumped back into her chair before her watch began to beep. She answered the call after an apologetic look to Dr. Strange. It was Dr. Hellen Cho.

“Miss Parker I have some fantastic news. Dr. Connors is awake!” Piper shot up in her chair, snatched her bag and was already swinging it on in one motion. 

“How’s he doing? Is he ok? I’m on my way right now!” She waved over her shoulder at Dr. Strange and was out the door like a shot, racing off down the street towards Stark Tower and the Quinnjet.


	25. Reunion

Piper had flown Quinnjets before, with Tony as copilot but he was off dealing with a Hydra base in France with the other Avengers. So she was flying on her own. Well mostly, Karen was copiloting for her, but she wasn’t sure the AI had actually done this before either though she had definitely been programed for it. The com unit flicked to life and Piper waved at her dad. 

“Why’d you take a Quinnjet Kiddo?” 

“Dr. Connors is awake! Dr. Cho called me. I on my way to Korea to see what’s happening with him. If…” Piper paused flicking a few switches on the jet to send it flying faster. “If he’s not… not him, they’ll need someone who can handle it.” There was a pause on the line. 

“Will you be able to handle it?” Piper nodded. 

“I’ll handle it. It’s my mess. I have to do this. If he is him, I can help. No offence dad but genetics isn’t your wheelhouse. It’s Bruce’s and mine.” Tony laughed lightly. 

“I love that you and Bruce are on the same level! I am proud of you Pipes. Go, but call if you need help. And wear your suit.” Piper paused.

“How did you know I wasn’t?” Tony went quiet. “Dad, did you put a tracker in my suit?” 

“I didn’t not put a tracker in your suit.” Piper let out a long breath. 

“That’s getting removed right the hell now.” She pulled her suit out of her bag and began disassembling it. “I’ll keep the emergency protocols but no tracker!” Tony sighed. 

“Love you kiddo.” Piper nodded a screwdriver between her teeth. 

“Love you too dad.” It came out muffled but Tony gave a little laugh that she knew meant he’d heard her, then he ended the call. She shook her head as the jet sped off towards the horizon. 

 

Dr Cho was waiting outside the lab on the Helipad as the Quinnjet landed. Piper stepped out of the back of it, hopping down the minute there was enough space for her to do so. Helen Cho smiled at her. 

“No need to be rushing Miss Stark.” Piper shot her a look. 

“Parker, Dr. Cho. Parker. What are we looking at?” Dr. Cho nodded and flicked her finger across a pad in her hand bringing up a chart. She handed Piper a lab coat and let her pull it on before she handed over the chart. 

“Honestly he’s looking quite well. He’s a touch under the what would be an ideal temperature, but that seems common in subjects with similar… experiences.” Piper nodded. 

“It would run along the lines of the animal he’s essentially been spliced with. Spidergirl runs differently temperature wise too as does Dr. Banner. Though I wouldn’t call him an animal, the other guy either.” Dr. Cho nodded making a few notes on a pad her assistant had handed her as Piper skimmed the pad in her hands. 

“Is this live?” Dr. Cho nodded and Piper went back to the pad. 

“You’re right about his temperature but… carry the four… That should be standard for him now. Has there been any sign of transformation?” She didn’t beat around the bush. There was no time for that now. Even though it had only taken her three hours to get there, thanks to her dads tech, but it was still seven in the morning the day after Dr. Cho had originally called her. Time changes were hell on her already anxious mind. 

“No. Not yet. He’s interacted with a few people so far. Some basic questions and tests. Nothing stressful no needles. Nothing that might trigger the transformation.” Piper nodded. 

“That’s all well and good but we need to know what would happen if there was.” She thought for a moment. “I’m going in.” Dr. Cho looked like she wanted to protest but Piper held up a hand. “You’ve got the room he’s in rigged for Hulk level sedatives, right?” Dr. Cho nodded sending her assistants away as the approached the room. “Have the switch at the ready. It wont hurt me, just knock me out for a few hours. If he’s not… him, we need to know it now. Not when we’ve got him back out in the world.” Dr. Cho caught her arm. 

“What will you do if he’s not himself?” 

“Try again. I have to save him. It’s my fault he’s like this. He did this to save me. I have to do everything I can to save him.” Dr. Cho’s eyes softened and she shook her head slightly. 

“Sometimes I forget just how young you are. We’ll give you a signal when we’re ready for you to go in. We’ll flash that light twice.” She pointed at the light above the door to Dr. Connors room. Piper nodded and Dr. Cho slipped into the room she’d sent her assistants into. Piper took a deep breath. She was steadying herself. She would be facing one of two things in there. A lizard it had taken help from the Avengers to subdue, or a scientist who should blame her for his altered DNA. If she had been a little faster he wouldn’t have had to do it. She took another breath, this one shook and the light above the door flashed twice. No turning back now. She stepped into the room. 

 

Dr. Connors was a little nervous. He’d woken up in a lab he didn’t recognize, been told it was nearly three months after the last date he remembered and no one would give him a straight answer about what had happened. The last thing he remembered was being in the underground lab with Otto and Spidergirl. He’d attacked them. He’d meant to kill Otto. Meant to kill Piper when she got in his way. He clenched his fist trying to stop the shakes. The door clicked open and he looked up and froze. Piper stood in the doorway. She wasn’t wearing her Spidergirl suit, at least it didn’t look like she was. Instead she wore a t shirt, jeans and a white lab coat. He sat up carefully. 

“Piper?” She nodded. 

“How are you feeling doc?” He blinked at her as he sat up fully in bed. She took a tentative step forward. “Talk to me doc. Please.” 

“Piper. You’re ok?” She nodded looking slightly relieved.

“Yeah doc, more worried about you to be honest.” He blinked. She frowned. “What’s the last thing you remember?” He paused. “You’re safe here doc, we both are.” She knew that Dr. Cho’s staff had all signed airtight non disclosure agreements, they all liked their jobs too much to give away any secrets they saw or heard. He took a deep breath and nodded. 

“The lab in the sewers. I was talking to Otto. He wouldn’t help. He… he wasn’t what he had been. I attacked him. Spidergirl intervened. I…” His voice shook. “I attacked her too.” He shook tears spilling down his face. Piper stepped up to him and reached out carefully wrapping him in a hug. 

“You’re ok doc. We’re gonna be ok.” He sobbed into her shoulder. She nodded at the one way glass behind them. They were gonna be ok. 

 

Tony frowned watching the footage on his screen. They had dealt with the base easily enough. Almost too easily. But that wasn’t what he was looking at now. Right now he was watching old footage Natasha had lifted from the SHEILD database and dumped onto Piper’s server. Why? Because it was footage of her in her SHEILD days, well Spidey’s SHEILD days. She was good. Even as a trainee. Very good. Likely because she’d had a year of on the ground experience before she’d had much training. He wouldn’t say before she had any training, because apparently all of the avengers except him had known she was Spidey before he did. Well except for Sam. But Sam was still new, he also wasn’t here, apparently he was chasing a lead on Bucky. Tony shook himself and closed the footage as Nat stepped onto the jet. 

“How’s Spangles dealing with the authorities?” Natasha smiled. 

“Pretty well, his French is a bit rusty but Clint knows enough for all of us and apparently Thor speaks something called Allspeak which we all just hear as our native language.” Tony raised an eyebrow. 

“Does that mean you heard him speaking Russian this whole time?” Natasha’s smile turned secretive. 

“Russian hasn’t been my native language in a long time Stark.” Tony rolled his eyes, ready to shoot back that technically one couldn’t change one’s native tongue, when the console started beeping. Tony tapped it and smiled, rushing to the back of the jet.

“Avengers! Get your asses over here I got something!” They gathered quickly. Tony pulled up the info. Cap frowned. 

“I don’t see what you’re seeing.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“Of course you don’t Spangles.” Bruce stepped forward. 

“They’ve been hiding a base. A big one, this might be it! Hiding it by stacking other information on top of it.” Tony nodded. 

“Exactly. If I wasn’t information matching what we have with every base we find it would have taken us years to find it!” Cap cleared his throat and Thor frowned. 

“Find what?” 

“Loki’s scepter.” Clint perked up. 

“Where are we headed?” Tony glanced down at his screen. 

“Sokovia.”


	26. The Meeting Of The Minds

Piper and Dr. Cho talked for hours. In the end they decided that it would be a good idea to move Dr. Connors to the med bay back at the tower where they could do more extensive testing and where Dr. Banner could get a look at him. Loading him into the quinnjet was easy. Not punching the woman she found in the pilots chair wasn’t easy. She hadn’t been expecting anyone there and immediately stepped in front of the gurney Dr. Connors was on. Dr. Connors blinked at the brunette in the pilots seat. 

“Hill?” Piper froze. That was a name she’d heard around far too often. Agent Maria Hill had been Fury’s right hand. The one they’d made sure never met her. She’d also, back in the day, been her parent’s supervising agent. The brunette smiled at the pair of them.

“Doctor. Good to see you awake.” Piper stared. She wasn’t what she’d been expecting. She couldn’t have been older than thirty for starters. Or at least she didn’t look it. She also wasn’t a grizzled agent who looked like she’d seen a hundred battles. She looked… ordinary. Piper turned away from her and set about securing they gurney. She wasn’t sure what to say to the agent who stayed in the pilots chair. The agent, well ex agent piper supposed, didn’t seem to know anymore than she did what to say. “JARVIS lets get this bird underway.” Hill frowned as nothing happened. Piper cleared her throat.

“Karen, fire it up.” 

“Of course.” The cheerful female voice made Hill raise an eyebrow as Piper stepped up to the chair and flicked a few switches on the console over the older woman’s head.

“Do you mind if I?” Piper asked gesturing to the controls. Hill nodded and stepped down to where the gurney was secured. Piper took up her seat and settled in fiddling with the controls as she heard Hill and Dr. Connors speaking quietly. Karen’s voice echoed in her earpiece. 

“Are you alright? Your heart rate is elevated.” Piper huffed lightly. 

“Well Karen it’s been a day. Can you play my relaxation playlist?” Music began to flow through the jet and Piper smiled at the familiar notes of a Florence and the Machine song. This flight was going to be an awkward one. 

 

The fight with Strucker’s men didn’t last as long as Tony had expected it to. He had to admit the enhanced were a surprise, and not a pleasant one but here he stood feet away from Loki’s scepter at last. He was shaking. He didn’t hear the female enhanced behind him. His vision blurred red for a moment and he blinked. Must have been a trick of the light. He heard something behind him, a rasping metallic sound. Slowly he turned and ducked as one of the giant space whales hanging from the ceiling began to move, roaring above him and out into the void of space. He blinked. He wasn’t in the lab anymore, he was stumbling on a rock floating in space. Ahead of him was a portal, a horrible tear in space that least straight to earth. And directly in front of him was a horror scene. 

 

Each of the Avengers was there, all bloodied, all broken. Clint’s bow was broken, only the Hulk even twitched. Cap’s shield was shattered. Tony stared. They weren’t the only ones there though. White Tiger lay twisted in a position that meant she couldn’t be alive, her white costume stained nearly entirely red. Nova was nearby, his helmet split open. Tony didn’t dare look at the boy inside. Luke lay near the Hulk, similarly skewered. Iron Fist lay next to Clint, his arm a bloodied stump. But worst of all was the figure laying near Cap. Tony stumbled and struggled to move forwards. 

She wasn’t wearing her mask. Her hair was matted with blood, but if it was hers or not he couldn’t tell. Her eyes were closed as he finally stumbled over to her and dropped to his knees, one shaking hand reaching out, desperate to find a pulse. But he jumped as an arm grabbed his. He stared as his daughter’s eyes flicked open, glassy and almost unseeing. There was blood on her tongue, speaking harshly of worse bleeds buried beneath a torn and tattered Spidergirl suit. 

“You could have saved us…” Her words were jerky, shaking as more blood pooled at her lips. “Why didn’t you do more?” Her voice shook like a child’s final prayer as her hand stilled on his arm. The sight sent a thousand knives through Tony as he stumbled back and crashed into a table back in the lab. His breath was shaking and he could barely keep his feet. His breath huffed out of him as he stared at the scepter in front of him. He was too distracted to see the twins behind him.

 

Wanda tilted her head at the figure in front of her as he struggled back to his feet calling out for the armor that he wore like a shield. He was still reeling from the vision he had just seen. Pietro rushed in and was about to take Stark out when Wanda raised a hand. Her brother stared at her. 

“We’re just going to let him take it?” Wanda smiled and nodded as Iron Man lifted the scepter out of its cradle of technology. As he took off out of the building Pietro frowned at Wanda. “Why did you just let him take it?” 

“Because I read him. He will bring his own demise with it. In trying to defend, he will destroy. All we have to do is wait.”

 

Piper was humming along to a tune when Maria Hill finally leaned against the console near her. Piper stiffened slightly but nodded her way. For a moment neither of them spoke. 

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Maria Hill had broken the silence looking over at Piper who kept her eyes fixed on the consoles in front of her. “Fury didn’t want to overwhelm you with everything.” Piper stiffened further. 

“Fury liked to keep his secrets.” Hill nodded. 

“Yes, he did. But so, do you.” Piper turned slightly and finally made eye contact with Hill. “You found the drive didn’t you? Your parents drive. I always suspected that if Oscorp didn’t have it Richard would have given it to someone he trusted. His brother.” Piper sighed. 

“If you’d figured that out why not go looking?” Hill shook her head. 

“I did. That was why I was at your house, posing as a child services officer, that day.” Piper frowned. 

“I knew you were there, dad said as much. But he implied you were there for me.” Hill nodded slightly. 

“In part I was.” Piper flicked a few switches in silence waiting for Hill to elaborate. She was about to but a beep sounded and she held up a hand and clicked on the com unit. 

“Hey dad.” He looked shaken up. Piper frowned. 

“Hey Pipes. Need you to swing around and grab Dr. Cho. Clint took a hit on the field and you’re the closest transport we have.” Piper easily turned the jet around but her knuckles were white on the controls. “He’s gonna be ok, but he needs her fancy tools. Hill I see you finally decided that you are going to work for a living. You got the ones you were after?” Hill nodded. 

“All in the hands of the UN.” Tony nodded slightly. Piper spoke back up as she boosted their speed and began the decent back to the lab. 

“Are you ok? I haven’t seen you this shaken in a while dad.” Tony nodded. 

“I’m fine Pipes. Tell Cho to set up in Uncle B’s lab. He won’t mind.” Tony cut off the call and Dr. Cho boarded the jet. Piper set the boosters to maximum and they sped off towards Avengers Tower.


	27. Pretending

They arrived before the Avengers and Piper helped Dr. Cho set up in the lab above the iron legion repair center. The whole set up was adjacent to the landing strip. It made it easier for any injured avenger to get care faster. The med bay was on another level but hopefully they wouldn’t have to have Clint in for too long. Maria Hill had busied herself going over the information Tony was sending ahead. Piper’s watch beeped. 

“I have a very anxious blonde waiting for you in the living room Piper.” Karen stated and Piper frowned then swore as she remembered that she’d told Flash to come over so they could discuss his status with the team. She took the stairs two at a time shouting over her shoulder for Cho to call her if she needed anything. A few of the in house medics were getting Dr. Connors set up in a room on medical. Piper leapt down the stairs, not bothering to actually walk. She wasn’t even out of breath when she skidded into the living room and spotted Flash awkwardly sitting on one of the couches, looking out of place and very uncomfortable. She cleared her throat. 

Flash started and turned around feeling almost relieved when he spotted Piper. She was wearing a lab coat and looked a bit run down but she was the most familiar thing here. He rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Hi. Um I came by yesterday after school and you weren’t here. JARVIS told me to come back later.” Piper frowned and checked her watch then the clock behind the bar. She swore. 

“Sorry. I had an emergency in Korea. A friend of mine woke up from a coma and I needed to be there. Time changes are hell.” Flash grinned slightly. 

“Haven’t actually been out of New York before so I wouldn’t know.” There was an awkward silence. Piper sighed and nodded tapping her watch twice. 

“Team meet in the living room please.” Once she’d gotten the affirmative signal from the others she slid behind the bar. “You want anything?” She asked and Flash raised an eyebrow at her.

“Never thought you’d be the underage drinking type.” Piper snorted at him as he settled in at the bar. 

“Never said alcohol, besides it doesn’t actually work on me. Unless its Asgardian.” Flash frowned and Piper grabbed a can of soda from one of the mini fridges holding it out to him. He took it and frowned. 

“How do you know that?” Piper snorted a laugh.

“Ok so this is actually a long story, but the short version is Dr. Banner and I were running some experiments on my altered metabolism after I got my powers and I asked if I could get drunk and he said he didn’t know. So I decided to try it.” She pulled out another soda and popped it open. “But I didn’t tell Uncle Bruce. I drank a full bottle of whiskey and nothing happened. Then I found Thor’s stash. I had two shots, woke up the next morning with the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life. Never again.” Flash burst out laughing as the elevator doors opened and the rest of the team stepped out. For a moment they stood there. Sam stepped forwards first. 

“The actual fuck is happening here?” Piper stifled her laughter and nodded. 

“Oh shit. I didn’t tell you guys did I?” They collectively shook their heads. “Flash figured us out. Ava’s watch gave us away. Venom told him most of the rest.” Flash nodded, waving slightly from his spot at the bar. Piper held up a fresh soda as the team gathered around the bar. She began handing out drinks as she continued. “So he’d here because he needs training. I’d prefer to have Venom close than running rampant. No offence.” Flash shrugged. “Oh and Doc Connors is awake.” The team made noises of surprise and Sam choked on his drink. 

“You weren’t gonna lead with the Lizard!” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“If he was still the Lizard I would have lead with it.” She glanced towards Bruce’s lab as she heard the sound of a quinnjet landing. “By all appearances the antidote worked. He’s back to normal but very shaken up. He’s on the medical level if you guys want to visit. But if we can keep it to one at a time that would be better, we don’t want to overwhelm him.” They nodded. “I did have one more thing to say before I let you guys get back to your business. Should we offer Hobgoblin a spot? Far as I know we don’t know him, and he hasn’t figured us out. Mull it over. I need to talk to my dad.” She easily hopped over the bar and made her way up the stairs. Danny and Luke turned to Flash. 

“How about we show you to the gym, we’ll see what you’ve got.” Flash nodded slightly. The three of them left and Ava shook her head. 

“Wanna watch him get his ass beat?” Sam nodded and they followed the other three. 

 

Piper grinned at her dad as he stepped out of Bruce’s lab. 

“How’s Uncle Clint?” Tony smiled. 

“Unfortunately, he’s still Barton.” She and Bruce laughed Tony’s grin widened. “He’s fine. He’s thirsty.” Tony set about making a round of drinks for the Avengers as Piper turned and spotted something that made her blink. 

“You got it!” Loki’s scepter stood balanced in a cradle of equipment, scanners running over it. Tony smiled, though his eyes went haunted as he looked at the scepter. Piper was too interested in the Asgardian weapon to notice though. “It’s smaller than I thought it would be.” Bruce nodded.

“I feel like it grew when Loki wanted a longer weapon.” Tony shrugged handing a cup to Bruce. 

“Thor does claim his brother is a magic user. Maybe it did.” Piper shrugged and leaned forwards poking the scepter with one finger. “Hey! No touching Spider-kid. We don’t know how this thing works yet.” Piper rolled her eyes at her dad and followed him into the lab where Dr. Cho had her equipment set up. “Oh no he’s flat lining, call it! Time?” Clint scoffed as Piper hopped up onto one of the empty tables. 

“I’m gonna live forever I’m gonna be made of plastic.” Piper snorted as Cho began to explain what was happening. Bruce chimed in but he was looking down at a pad in his hand. He beckoned Piper over. 

“Can you take a look at this, I think I see what Strucker did but I could use another set of eyes.” Piper took the pad from him and began to read through the notes. Strucker had been preforming illegal human experimentation. Piper frowned as she looked at the DNA sequencing. She stepped over to a console and pulled up a blank screen, transferring the data to it and pulling the holo image of the DNA strands off the table and looked at them closer. 

“That is fascinating!” Bruce stepped over to her as she continued. “Strucker managed to activate a latent X gene in both of them.” Bruce frowned at the DNA model in her hand and his eyebrows rose in comprehension as she read through Strucker’s notes. “I don’t think he even knew that’s what he was doing. He never once brings it up. This is brilliant work.” 

“Resulted in two pretty hostile enhanced though.” Piper blushed slightly at Natasha’s words and flicked the holo image back to the console. Tony turned to Piper. 

“Oh we’re having revels on Saturday! To celebrate hopefully wrapping up this whole Hydra nonsense once and for all now that we have their top dog. Invite your boy.” Piper went bright red as Tony grinned and turned to Dr. Cho asking if she would be attending the party. She excused herself and made her way downstairs to call Harry.

 

Tony smiled at Bruce as he finished explaining what he hoped to accomplish with the mind he’d discovered in Loki’s scepter. 

“Just think about it Bruce. Peace in our times. No more having to worry about any of it. I see a suit of armor around the world, with Ultron we could do it.” 

“Sounds like a cold world Tony.” 

“I’ve seen colder. Three days. That’s all I’m asking.” Bruce frowned but relented. “And we can’t tell anyone about this.” Bruce rolled his eyes but acquiesced.


	28. Run With It

The next three days passed in a blur and soon Piper was helping prep the living room for the party. There wasn’t much to do. The rest of her team was out patrolling with Flash. They hadn’t decided if they would officially let Hobgoblin join up with them but none of them seemed totally against the idea. She smiled as she headed back to her level and changed into her dress. It was a blue number that matched Harry’s shirt for the night. Things were going so smoothly between them and Piper knew that she needed to tell him soon, the truth, that she was Spidergirl. That she knew about her parents, about his father’s involvement in their deaths. Her hands shook slightly. Tonight. She would tell him tonight that she was Spidergirl. She took a deep breath and headed back to the living room. 

The party was just starting when Harry showed up and Piper grinned from her current spot talking to Uncle Rhodey who shooed her on her way when he spotted who she was looking at. She met him with a hug and a smile and he held her close for a moment. She spotted Tony rolling her eyes at them from across the room, but he said nothing. One of the few reporters in the room had spotted him though and stepped over to them to grab a quote from each of them. 

It was a few hours later when they finally got some alone time. Piper slipped back behind the bar and grinned at Harry. Harry smiled right back and cleared his throat before speaking. 

“So, what brings a beautiful girl like you to a place like this?” Piper snorted slightly.

“Oh, you know, the usual. A boy.” Harry grinned at her. “He’s a bit of a dork though but I think I can run with that.” 

“Then I think you should.” She looked down at the mini fridge and pulled out a soda for each of them. 

“I think I will but…” Harry’s smile slipped slightly. “He doesn’t know everything about me though. I’d like him to but I’m not sure how he’d react to this particular secret.” Harry raised an eyebrow. 

“I think if he’s really the right guy he won’t care what you’ve done or what secrets you keep.” Piper grinned as he took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Run with it.” Before Piper could speak Thor practically materialized beside Harry. 

“This must be your suitor Lady Piper!” Before Piper could protest Thor was dragging Harry away. Piper sighed and rolled her eyes at the ceiling wondering if she would ever get to tell Harry the truth. 

 

The party had basically wrapped up by the time she got another chance to talk to him. It was just the Avengers now, along with Agent Hill, Dr. Cho, Rhodey, herself and Harry. 

“Come on it’s a trick!” Piper snorted at Clint as Thor motioned his forward. Clint tried and failed to lift the hammer and each in turn took their try. Piper giggled as Bruce faked a roar. She patted Harry on the shoulder as he tensed. Bruce gestured to Natasha who shook her head. 

“That’s not a question I need answered.” She gave Piper a pointed look and Piper eyed the hammer for a moment. It would be interesting if she could lift the hammer. Knowing what she knew of magic she knew that not just anyone could be worthy of it. Though whose definition of worthy the hammer was working off of seemed a bit up in the air to her. After a moment she shook her head.

“I think I’m with Auntie Tasha on this one. Not a question I think I need answered.” Harry raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Why not?” 

“I know my value. I don’t think I need a hammer to tell me how much I’m worth.” Natasha smiled at her and Agent Hill raised her glass in her direction. Piper rolled her eyes as Steve stepped up to the bat. 

“For what it’s worth I think you’d be able to lift it.” Harry said softly. Piper grinned slightly at him as the Hammer shifted slightly in Steve’s grip and Thor went pale. Piper held herself beck from laughing, but only just. This would be a good time to sneak off and talk to Harry in private. She grabbed his hand as Thor stood up and easily picked up his hammer, grinning at them. 

“I have a better theory. You’re all not worthy.” They all laughed. Piper made to pull Harry to his feet and out onto the balcony when her spidey sense jolted her and she stumbled slightly as a hissing whirring crackling voice echoed around them. 

“Woooortthyyyy.” They all turned toward the elevator. Piper sidestepped in front of Harry as they all spotted the source of the sound. It was a half built iron legionnaire. Its face was partially melted like someone had splashed it with acid. It walked like it was injured, trailing oil along the floor. The voice that came out of it wasn’t familiar. 

“How could you be worthy? You’re all killers.” The room went tense as the half built thing gestured around the room his arm skipping only Piper and Harry. 

“Stark.” Steve’s voice had gone full Captain America, calculating and commanding. 

“JARVIS.” Tony tapped his phone but got no response. The machine in front of them whirred and kept talking. 

“Sorry, I was asleep. Or… I was a dream.”

“Reboot Legionnaire OS.” Still nothing happened. “We got a buggy suit.”

“Terrible noise.” Piper stared. This wasn’t a bug. This approached sentience. “I was tangled in… in strings. Had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy.” Piper’s blood ran cold. She twitched towards her watch. Had someone from the team come back early? 

“You killed someone.” From the sound of Steve’s voice his mind was working along the same line as hers. 

“Wouldn’t have been my first call. But out here in the real world we’re faced with ugly choices.” The room was so tense that Piper could practically hear the muscles tense in the fighters around her. She kept Harry behind her as she fingered her bracelets. Well they looked like bracelets. They were a set of webshooters in reality. She’d worn them in case Harry had asked for proof when she told him the truth. She guessed that she wouldn’t get the chance to tell him the way she’d wanted to. 

“Who sent you?” Thor asked twirling his hammer in his hand. There was a faint click and the voice echoing from the robot changed. 

“I see a suit of armor around the world.” It was her father’s voice. Bruce was the first to react his eyes going wide. 

“Ultron?” It was a name she’d heard bandied about a few times. But it had always been a fantasy, something that her father and Bruce like to theorize about but it was never real. Except that it seemed to be staring them in the face right now. 

“In the flesh. Or no, not yet. Not this chrysalis. But I’m ready. I’m on mission.” The faint click of a safety being flicked off and a gun cocked met Piper’s ears and she tensed, ready for battle. This wasn’t how she’d wanted it to be. This was so far from how she’d wanted Harry to find out. She would just have to run with it.


	29. No More Secrets

“What’s the mission?” Natasha asked it and Piper would have sworn that if it had a real mouth Ultron would have smiled.

“Peace in our times.”

Just like that all hell broke loose. The wall behind Ultron exploded disgorging six more rouge iron legionaries. Every Avenger moved separately, but each seemed to know what the other was going to do before they did so. Hill was armed, but no one else had anything viable on them save Piper herself. Cap flipped the table, blunting the blow from one of the legionaries as Thor slammed his hammer into another. Piper grabbed Harry and threw them both out of the way, twisting as they fell so he landed on top of her. She rolled them as they landed, ending them up behind a sturdy end table. She flipped them easily and Harry stared at her blinking. 

“I love you, please don’t think less of me for this.” His expression went questioning then turned to stunned awe as she leapt over the end table and swung into the fray. 

 

Harry wasn’t sure what he was feeling as he watched Piper swig away on what was clearly a webline coming from her bracelets. He dove back to his spot behind the end table as glass flew. One of the legionaries was repeating the phrase, ‘we are here to help’ over and over as they attempted to murder the Avengers. Harry tapped on his watch as he mumbled to himself, he was summoning his glider. It had seemed prudent after the Rhino to have the call button on him.

“Ok, so she’s been Spidey this whole time. So that’s a thing.” That was, embarrassing to say the least. That meant that she had been there for all of Venom. Oh god. He’d tried to kill her more than once. Oh god. He’d told Spidey he was in love with Piper. Oh god! His dad had tried to kill her more than once. Wait, if she was Spidey that meant that his dad’s whack job employee had stolen her blood to turn his dad into the Goblin. Oh fuck, she blamed herself for that.

“Well that’s coming to a screeching halt.” He muttered and caught Natasha shooting him a dirty look from her vantage point behind the bar. He ducked as more glass rained and one of the legionaries spotted him. He scrambled back as it flew his way. His glider and suit were still two minutes out. He was gonna die. The robot raised its arm and two hands sprouted from its center and ripped it in half. He blinked up at Piper and she turned as Cap sent his shield through the second to last legionnaire. The last one was the original legionnaire still standing there sort of half slumped. There were remains of five robots around the room, one of them had gotten away. 

“That was dramatic.” There was a beat of silence. “I’m sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn’t think it though. You want to protect the world. You just don’t want it to change. How is humanity saved if it’s not allowed to evolve?” The blank staring lights that made up the robot’s eyes fixed on Piper for a moment then it bent down and picked up one of the broken legionaries. “These puppets… There’s only one path to peace.” It crushed the head in its hand, oil dripping from incomplete fingers. “The Avengers extinction.” 

 

Thor’s hammer whirred through the air smashing through the broken legionnaire. The pieces clattered to the floor and Piper looked around. 

“Where’s the last one?” There was a crash from upstairs and Piper spotted the final legionare taking off from the lab something golden and glowing in its hands. Thor had spotted it too for he took off smashing his way out of the window. Clint helped Dr. Cho to her feet as Piper turned to Harry, her eyes pointedly avoiding his as she tapped her watch. It lit up and she spoke to it. 

“Call in, everyone who can check in ASAP.” Five quick call in’s followed. Piper looked relieved but then her expression settled to confused. “Then who did he…” Her eyes met Tony’s and they both raced for the lab. Harry followed, hot on Piper’s heels. 

“Piper?” She held up a hand to him, staving off whatever he was about to say as her fingers flew across keys and her father ducked under some mangled machines. He swore as sparks flew. “Piper there’s something I need to tell you too.” Piper held up her hand at him, gesturing a bit more forcefully. “I mean this is something I kind of need to tell you now. The screen in front of Piper lit up orange, but the glow was spotty, broken and her hands stilled on the keys. 

“Dad.” Her voice faltered. Tony pulled himself out from under a smoking console and stumbled slightly. Harry swore he saw tears in the inventors eyes. But he didn’t have time to argue as his watch beeped and the window behind them shattered. A very dented glider slid to a halt beside Harry as Piper leapt to the ceiling, in a defensive crouch and Tony snatched up a glove from the table. 

“I’m the Hobgoblin.” Harry said both hands raised as the other Avengers barreled into the room after the glider. Piper stared at him from the ceiling then began to laugh. She devolved into giggles after a few minutes and sat on the ceiling just laughing as the avengers and Dr. Cho gathered around. Harry looked around for some kind of answer. Natasha was the one who took pity on him. 

“Shock.” A short but effective answer to his question of what the fuck was going on. He frowned and sat on his glider carefully guiding it so she was eye level with him. 

“I was going to tell you after the party.” Piper hiccupped out a laugh at him. 

“I was going to tell you at the party, it’s why I wore my web shooters.” 

“I vote you just never take those off again.” Tony said from his spot on the ground. Harry huffed out a laugh. 

“Honestly seconded.” He caressed the side of her face, it was a little awkward as she was currently upside down but somehow it worked. She sniffled and rubbed her eyes. 

“He killed JARVIS.” Harry stiffened. The others around them frowned. Bruce stepped up to one of the still functional screens and began to type. 

“All our work is gone. Ultron cleared out. Used the internet as an escape route.” Natasha nodded from her screen. 

“He’s been in everything, files, surveillance, probably knows more about us than we do about each other.” Piper flinched slightly at that but Harry didn’t pull away from her. She leaned into his hand, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall into her hair. Rhodey stepped forwards looking concerned. 

“He’s in your files, he’s in the internet. What happens if he decides to go for something more interesting?” 

“Nuclear codes.” Maria Hill said from her spot in the corner and Rhodey nodded. 

“Nuclear codes.” That seemed to clear Piper’s head a bit and she carefully flipped herself down off the ceiling and onto the glider next to Harry. “We need to make some calls assuming that we still can.” Natasha shook her head. 

“Nukes?” She shook her head. “He said he wanted us dead, he didn’t” 

“He didn’t say dead.” Steve cut across her. “He said extinct.” Clint nodded. 

“He also said he killed somebody. That was JARVIS?” Piper nodded and hopped off the glider tapping the screen she’d been working on. A large orange projection spilled out in front of them but it was broken, ripped into pieces. Bruce stepped up to it. 

“This is insane.” 

“JARVIS was the first line of defense, he would have shut Ultron down. It makes sense.” Bruce shook his head at Steve before going back to examining the carnage left behind. 

“Ultron could have assimilated JARVIS. This isn’t strategy. This is rage.” Thor stormed into the room, heading straight for Tony. Piper stepped in his way, preventing him from reaching her father. 

“Come on use your words buddy.” 

“I have more than enough words to describe you Stark.”

“Thor!” Steve stepped up next to Piper. “The legionnaire?” Thor lowered his hammer and sighed angrily. 

“The trail went cold about a hundred miles out. But it was heading north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it again!” Natasha shook her head. 

“Genies out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron.” Dr. Cho shook her head. 

“I don’t understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?”


	30. Divide and Conquer

Piper’s watch beeped as the Avengers continued to argue. She slipped off of Harry’s glider and held out a hand to help him down. He took it without hesitation and followed her out of the room. She tapped her watch. 

“Where are you guys now?” Harry looked over her shoulder and saw Nova on the small screen. 

“Why is Osborn listening to this call Miss Parker?” 

“Cut the shit Nova. He knows. Shits been going down over here. Reconvene at the tower, now.” Nova blinked at her words. 

“Everyone?” Piper nodded. 

“Everyone, we need to figure out our next move, we’re gonna need everyone on board. I get the feeling we’re gonna need all the help we can get.” With no more explanation than that she clicked off the call and frowned. Tapping her watch for a moment her eyes lit up with a spark of hope. She turned and ran into the other room where the Avengers were debating their next move. 

“Karen’s alive!” Tony leapt to his feet and ran to Piper who held out her watch as the others looked around confused. Harry shrugged. Piper jerked her wrist forwards and a light blossomed from her watch. Instead of gold like JARVIS or blue like Ultron, this one was red like Piper’s suit. It pulsed and spoke in a friendly woman’s voice. 

“Hello!” Tony frowned. 

“Why did Ultron leave her alone?” Piper tapped at the code for a moment. 

“I disconnected her from the house systems. I wanted to alter a few codes, make life easier for the team. But to get at the ones I wanted I had to disconnect her from JARVIS.” Tony let out a long breath. 

“So we’re not completely blind and deaf then.” Piper nodded. 

“Team’s on their way. We need to regroup. Figure out what Ultron is planning.” Cap nodded stepping forwards. 

“She’s right. Ultron could be anywhere, the world’s a big place. Let’s start making it smaller.” Harry stepped forwards.

“I may be able to help with that. Oscorp isn’t connected to JARVIS at all. Maybe my computers can find something your system’s can’t at the moment.” Piper nodded though Tony looked like he’d just swallowed a lemon. 

“That’s not a bad plan. Do you have remote access?” Harry nodded.

“If you’ll let me use your laptop, I can have remote access.” Tony rolled his eyes and stepped over to an intact computer console. The air in the room was tense and Harry glanced at Piper who shook her head and took his hand intertwining their fingers.

“Come on, let’s head off the team. We’ve got a lot to explain.” Harry nodded and gently squeezed her hand. She smiled at him slightly and the left the room. 

 

The first words out of anyone’s mouth as the team landed to Piper and Harry in very rumpled slightly torn clothes holding hands came from Venom. 

“Fucking! Finally!” Piper snorted and Harry went bright red though he looked very defensive as Venom addressed him and Piper had noticeably stepped between the two. 

“Shut the fuck up Venom.” Her tone was light but there was a fire in her eyes that brooked no arguments. Venom lifted his hands in surrender. There was a pause until Harry took a deep breath and stepped forwards. 

“Um I guess it’s time I properly met you all. I’m Harry Osborn, I’m also the Hobgoblin.” The team stared at him. White Tiger turned to Piper. 

“Is anyone we know not a superhero?” Piper shrugged. 

“Eddie, Mj…” Nova shook his head and rounded on Piper. 

“Did you tell him!?” Piper shook her head. 

“No, not about you guys, that’s your choice. Also, we have shit to talk about.” Iron Fist held up a hand. 

“You trust him Spider?” Piper nodded, not taking her hand from Harry’s.

“With my life.” Iron Fist nodded and pulled his mask off. 

“Then I trust him as well. It’s nice to be properly introduced Harry.” Harry’s eyes bugged at the sight of his classmate. Luke nodded and followed Danny’s lead. Ava went next and Sam hesitated. But he sighed, frustrated and pulled off his helmet. Venom looked between them and followed their lead, letting the symbiote retreat. Flash looked down awkwardly as Harry stared around the group. 

“I have so many questions.” Piper nodded. 

“Murder bot first. Questions second.” She began to lead them back into the building. 

“Wait murder bot?” Flash asked as he trailed behind the group.

 

Harry shook his head down at the computer in front of him. 

“I’ve got remote access and am running every search I can think of but so far no sign of him. But I’m not getting all the info I should be getting. One of the labs isn’t responding.” Piper frowned and turned to the others who were scattered around the room grabbing a snack after their patrol. Piper had explained what had happened with Ultron and that they were assisting the Avengers with this as it was a direct threat to everything. 

“Suit up. We need to check it out.” Harry stood and tapped his watch activating his glider. 

“Right.” He pulled off a segment of the glider, revealing his suit. Piper grinned at him as he looked around, blushing slightly. “You can change on my level. Come on.” Piper ignored Flash laughing slightly behind them as she led Harry off to her level. She stopped at one of the empty rooms on her level and motioned him inside. “We’ll meet back in the living room. Shouldn’t take too long.” With that she stepped into one of her labs to change. He smiled slightly and stepped into the room to change as well. 

 

He didn’t take too long to change. Her lab door was closed when he stepped out of the room. He paused before he stepped to the doors and tapped on the tinted glass. 

“Come in!” Piper called and Harry stepped into the room. She was in Spidergirl’s costume, minus the mask, fiddling with something he couldn’t see. She turned around and smiled at him. She was adjusting her bracelets, but they weren’t bracelets. He smiled slightly. 

“How did I miss that you were Spidergirl, all this time.” Piper smiled slightly. She reached up to the back of her neck and flicked a switch he couldn’t see. 

“Well the voice changer helped.” Harry snorted a laugh as the voice he’d come to associate with Spidergirl came out of Piper’s mouth. He reached out his hand to her and she took it grabbing her mask as they made their way out of her level.


	31. The Lab

The flight to the lab was quick. It wasn’t too far away from Stark Tower and the closer they got the more it became clear that something was going down at the lab. The lights inside were flickering and flashing. Piper raised an eyebrow under her mask at Harry. 

“I’m guessing that’s unusual.” Harry nodded. 

“It’s a robotics lab but that’s not right.” Piper nodded standing on Harry’s glider. 

“Alright we’ll go at it from all four sides. Tiger, Fist, you take the north. Nova, Venom, you take the south. Power Man, Hobgoblin you take the east, I’ll take the west.” 

“Alone?” Nova asked and Spidey shot him a look. 

“I can handle it.” They nodded and grouped off. Harry squeezed her hand one last time before she flipped off his glider and landed softly on the roof before running to the other side of the building and leaping off, shooting a web and catapulting herself into the building with a crash of breaking glass. 

The lab was large and looked like it was normally well lit. Many of the overhead lights were shattered though. Some were flickering. In the patchy light Piper could see exactly what the problem was. Robots, these looked unfamiliar, were gathering tools. It didn’t look like they were Oscorp make, given the large Hydra symbol painted on their backs was any indication. Say what you would about Norman Osborn, and Piper had a few choice words ready for when they met again, he’d never backed Hydra. There were only three of them but they all turned on Spidey as she landed on a large piece of machinery. 

“Oh! I’ve been wanting to take a crack at Hydra for a while now! Do you think they’ll make me an avenger for this?” She shot a line at the closest bot and its eyes glowed red. A familiar voice came from its speaker. 

“Ah, the interfering little spider.” Under her mask Piper’s eyes bugged. It was Ultron’s voice. The two free bots lunged at her as the glass on the other three sides of the building broke. The bots ignored the others though and all three swarmed Piper. She flipped out of the way of Nova’s blast and her foot was snatched by one of the other bots who took off up out of the building as the other two refocused on the team. Piper’s ears popped as they reached a significant altitude in a matter of seconds. With no tall buildings to web onto, fuck, she wasn’t wearing her shield issued webshooters, hadn’t worn them in a long time. She had no web parachute to fall back on this time. 

“You know I could dump your little secret all over the web Miss Parker, but your dear father would turn it to his advantage. Let’s see him deal with your death, shall we?” Piper kicked out at the bot with her free foot, successfully putting her foot through the torso, but as the light began to fade from the robot it began to laugh. Piper’s spidey sense went crazy as they began to drop and another bot flew at her from the direction of the lab. She was trying to free her feet, under the impression that her spidey sense was going off solely from the fall. She was wrong but only realized it when the second bot shot past her one claw-like hand outstretched. She twisted in mid air and blood flew. A blast of light sailed into the now bloodstained bot as Piper’s hands scrambled at her neck. Nova caught her and blanched under his helmet. Blood was pouring from Piper’s neck, her movements were slowing quickly. He thought and carefully gripped her with one arm letting his other hand heat up. He drew is superheated fingers across the long slash marks the robot had created as she writhed in his grip. He had to stop the bleeding now and the only way to do that that they had on hand was to cauterize the wound. He was shaking by the time he finished. Both of them were drenched in her blood and he was sobbing. Her mask was torn and tattered around the neck. 

Four slashes now decorated her skin, angry and burning red. One sat along her jawline, starting just under her ear and ending about halfway to her chin. That was the smallest of the four, a more glancing blow. The other three sat on her neck itself barely half an inch apart. They were about the same length as the one on her chin but were deeper, at least if the blood was any indication. The bleeding itself had stopped when he’d burned the wounds but he was shaking. He managed to shake disabled bot off of her foot and roasted it before flying at top speed towards Stark tower. 

 

The others had beaten the two bots left behind when Nova had spotted a fourth flying up to meet Piper mid fall. Several drops fell from where Nova was hovering with Piper in his arms. Iron fist reached out and caught one going pale at the bright crimson color. 

“Blood.” He confirmed and Harry leapt onto his glider just as Nova took off at full speed towards the Tower. Harry’s face had gone completely bloodless under his mask. Venom stepped up. 

“Hobgoblin you take Whit Tiger and Iron Fist back to the tower. I swing Power Man and me back. Go!” The other two hopped on either side of the glider and they took off, wobbling slightly. Piper was the best at balancing but the three of them made it work as Flash grabbed Power man around the waist and took off swinging towards the Tower. 

 

Only Dr. Cho was in the medical level when Nova arrived and set Spidey down on one of the tables. The blood had her moving before Nova could say anything. Nova quickstepped out of the room as Dr. Cho began to cut away her costume. He yanked off his helmet and ran for the nearest trashcan. He was still vomiting when the rest of the team arrived. Ava leapt off of Harry’s glider and bolted into the room. She’d become something of a medical assistant whenever another girl was hurt and Dr. Banner wasn’t available. Luke put a hand on Harry’s shoulder as Nova finally sat up shaking. Danny helped him up and pulled him into a room off the main hall. Steam plumed under the door after a few minutes. Danny stepped back out and they all heard a shower running along with the distinct sound of a washing machine. Danny was holding Nova’s helmet and a wet washcloth. There were bloody handprints on the helmet. 

“Any word?” Luke shook his head. He was shaking slightly. 

“I don’t understand what happened, she’s usually so good at dodging things like this.” 

“It was trying to take her head off. She was already falling. I don’t think even her senses could keep up with both.” Danny didn’t look up from the helmet he was cleaning with the cloth. Harry shuddered. It made sense that Ultron knew who Spidergirl was. But he’d never fully internalized just how dangerous this job was. He slid down the wall to join Luke and Danny. Flash was pacing. 

“Come on, she’ll be fine. She’s Spidergirl. Spidey always gets back up.” The symbiote had retreated and seemed to be gently squeezing Flash’s arm as if it would somehow comfort him. None of them spoke. Luke stood and stepped over to the stairs and made his way down a few floors to tell Tony what had happened since JARVIS was no longer available as a go between.


End file.
